The Wolf, Goat and Pegasus
by Blackout785
Summary: Remus replaces/is/merges with Annabeth, fem!Percy, AU. To be updated shortly. More info inside.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

**I do not own Harry potter or Percy Jackson and the Olympians.**

**Remus replaces/is/merges with Annabeth, fem!Percy, AU.**

**This might eventually become Romance but not until The Last Olympian, so don't worry about that. I'll skip through some portions because not all scenes are affected and I don't want to copy too much. Assume that they happened just the way they did in canon unless those scenes had Annabeth in them, in that case assume they never happened. I am also assuming you have read The Lightning thief before reading this. If you haven't, read it because otherwise a lot of this isn't going to make a lot of sense to you. Also I know that Remus went to school on the 1970s and Percy Jackson series happened at the 2000s but let's just assume that everything in HP universe is shifted forwards around 30 years. Also Remus is the only character from HP universe to turn out to be a Demigod as I find it annoying that they always just pop up for almost no reason. If such character will appear it will either be OC or villain. Please report any grammar errors, especially referring to someone as incorrect gender. Also I'm going to follow the books storyline.**

**I have 20 chapters done and number 21 is on its way. I'll be putting them up later**

**Total is about 35k words.**

Percy POV

Perseus Jackson.

I have had always hated my first name, especially since it is boys name and I am girl, which led to quite a streak of bullying whenever I moved to a new school.

My mother has always told me it was given to me by my father, but that didn't help much because I haven't ever met my father (or at least I wasn't old enough to remember it), and my mother hadn't given any other explanation.

I was under quite a lot of stress. I like to think that its justified considering my mother had recently been dissolved by a giant bull-man (I think that it was Minotaur but my mom said names have power so I'll just refer to it as bull-man), my best (and only) friend Grover had been knocked out by said bull-man and I was just about to collapse from the exertion of killing the aforementioned bull-man with its own horn.

The last thing I remember before losing my consciousness is collapsing and seeing two faces watch me.

The first one was bearded man that looked familiar but I couldn't recall who he was and the other was a boy with light brown hair that (rather disturbingly on hindsight) had several grey streaks running through it.

Seriously, he couldn't be more than a year older than me and already had greying hair.

It was ridiculous.

They both looked down at me and the boy said "There's no way this can be coincidence. She's got to be the one."

"Silence, Remus," the man said, "She's still conscious. Bring her in."

My first thought when I regained consciousness was that there was pudding in my mouth and that it tasted really weird.

In fact it tasted like popcorn.

That didn't make a lot sense, so I opened my eyes and realized that I was in a bedroom, lying on bed, and the boy I saw before (I knew I heard his name at some point but couldn't recall what it was) was feeding me pudding.

With a spoon.

That was creepy.

When he saw my eyes open, he asked "What will happen once the Summer solstice is here?"

"What?" Was my highly intelligent reply.

"What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"

"What?", I repeated, now highly confused.

Somebody knocked on the door and the boy filled my mouth with pudding and I promptly lost consciousness.

When I next came to be the boy was replaced by a man that had dozens of eyes all around his body.

I stared at him.

He stared at me.

I fell back to unconsciousness.

Chapter 1 End


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Remus POV

The girl we brought in from the border was still sleeping so I didn't really have anything to do.

I loved Camp Half-Blood, but now it was just getting on my nerves. It was all around nice place and most importantly Chiron accepted me despite my lycanthropy and even agreed to keep it secret from the rest of the campers, but it was getting infuriating being stuck in there for all of summer

At full moons I went to the forest and transformed there. I put on a collar that prevented me from going near humans or demigods or other beings that we wouldn't want dead.

It was unfortunate that it only worked at the Camp forest, because it would have been reassuring to have with me at all times.

I had once been bitter about my condition but over time I had come to accept it. While the drawbacks were enormous, the upsides did soften it a bit.

Werewolves are stronger, faster and have better senses than most people, and those stack with those inherent on Demigods.

Only three people on the camp knew about my problem and one was the instructor, another was like a brother to me and the last one… I didn't like to think about her.

I had been on this camp for five years (Though I did spend most of the recent years at Hogwarts) and it still liked it there it was just getting so repetitive. You could go and have extra training or read some books only so many times.

I had been quite amazed to discover that I had received a Hogwarts letter because I had been sure that my good luck had been spent on finding even one place that would accept me as a werewolf.

I had studying for two years in Hogwarts to become a wizard, and made several friends such as Sirius Black, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew, though I never even considered telling them about the camp.

Earlier this year they had discovered my Lycanthropy and, amazingly enough my luck still held and they continued to accept me as one of them.

My popularity along with the general level of education of the camp had skyrocketed after I introduced Camp Half-Blood to the wonders of English-Ancient Greek translation spell. As I was the only wizard on the camp, all who wished to read something were forced to ask me for help, which meant that Ares cabin stayed as uneducated as ever.

Several years ago I had received a gift from my mother Athena. She allowed me to pick a gift for myself from her collection.

My eyes had at first been drawn to a cap that would make the bearer invisible, but I settled on a wand sheath given to Athena by Hecate that would make so that no-one could track any magic the wearer used, including the underage-magic detectors back on the Ministry.

I was teaching younger campers (not younger as in age but as in how long they had been here) about monsters but Elaine, one of my half-sisters informed me that Chiron wanted me to come talk to him in the main house and that she'd be taking over the lesson.

I made my way over to the main house where Chiron and Mr. D were playing their stupid Pinochle.

"Ah, Remus," Chiron said as I entered. "Take a seat. Our newest arrival is awake and Grover will be bringing her here shortly. Care to take part in our game here?"

I politely refused and leaned on the railing. My curiosity had been awakened and I was now wondering whether I had been right on my prediction three days ago. My nightmares about the Great Prophecy had been intensifying for several weeks and had reached their climax the night before Grover and the girl arrived. After that they disappeared. There was also the similarities to the incident when I arrived at Camp Half-blood.

The girl (I just now remembered her name, Percy Jackson. Odd name for a girl) and Grover walked in.

She stared at Mr. D, while Grover introduced us. "That's Mr. D, he's the camp director. Be polite. The boy is Remus Lupin, camper and our expert in all things related to magic. He's also been here longer than anyone."

"Magic?", she questioned like she wouldn't believe what she'd heard. "Like how my mother was dissolved?"

"Not that kind of magic", I replied

"What?"

"I'll explain later", Grover said "And Chiron you already know."

I tuned out the conversation once I realized there wasn't anything important being said, just another confused new camper being brought up to speed. I was starting to doubt my predictions when Chiron shook me out of my musings by mentioning to Percy that I was the one to heal her and then ordered me to arrange her stay in Cabin Eleven.

I took a long look at her, assessing her. She had black hair, slightly tanned skin and deep green eyes.

She was couple inches shorter than me and didn't look very athletic. With the advantages granted to me by my Lycanthropy and training I was confident I could take her on if it came to that.

I looked at the Minotaur horn in her hand. Then again appearances can be deceiving. Though I supposed it could have been blind luck or sheer desperation at losing her mother that helped her take the monster down.

She was looking at me with an expression that looked like she was expecting me to compliment her for killing the Minotaur.

I quickly squashed such notions.

"You drool when you sleep," I said instead, leaving the confused girl and the others behind.

Chapter 2 end


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

** A/N: Yes, I know this is the same thing as the last chapter from a different perspective, but i wanted to give you first impressions from both sides. Laso apologies for short chapters, they shoul get longer later.**

Percy POV

After waking up, speaking with Grover and walking around the camp we apparently were in, we made our way over to the large farmhouse.

Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The brown-grey haired boy who'd fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.

The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels- what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.

He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step father.

I stared at the man, while Grover introduced them. "That's Mr. D, he's the camp director. Be polite. The boy is Remus Lupin, camper and our expert in all things related to magic. He's also been here longer than anyone."

"Magic?", I questioned. This was ridiculous. Though then again… "Like how my mother was dissolved?"

"Not that kind of "magic"", he replied

"What?" Now I was even more confused. There was more than one kind of magic?

"I'll explain later", Grover said "And Chiron you already know."

He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.

First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.

"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.

The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.

"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."

He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."

"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.

"Remus?" Mr. Brunner called to the boy

"Yes?", he replied, coming forward.

"This young man was responsible for your recovery. He has done excellent job. Now, Remus, why don't you go and prepare Percy's bunk."

"Sure, Chiron."

The boy took a long look at me, and I looked back. He was probably around a year older than me, and couple inches taller. He was slim and didn't look particularly athletic. It was like he'd been malnourished. He had short brown hair with several grey streaks running through it (seriously, that hair is kinda disturbing) and rather weird eyes.

They were startling gray, like storm clouds; nice, but intimidating, too, as if he were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.

He had several thin scars running across his face and a whole lot of smaller ones.

He glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined he was going to say, _You killed a minotaur!_ or _Wow, you're so awesome!_ or something like that.

Instead he said, "You drool when you sleep," and left

"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner…"

Chapter 3 end


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**A/N I know this is mostly similar to the original Lighting Thief book but I don't really think these parts would change that much and I can't just have out-of context snippets about what did change. **

**phoenixaggie06, I completely agree. That is in fact one of my reasons for writing this. I have a ton of crossover ideas ready but there's plenty of stories about the characters I like the most (Nico DiAngelo from PJO and Kakashi Hatake from Naruto), but very few about Remus.**

Percy POV

After a long talk about gods and immortality (and other casual things) and a short tour around the camp me and Chiron arrived at the Cabin Eleven.

"Oh, look," he said. "Remus is waiting for us."

The brown-grey-haired (Seriously, I cannot overstate how disturbing that is) boy I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.

When we reached him, he looked me over critically, like he was still thinking about how much I drooled.

I tried to see what he was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek.

There were pictures of hand motions and some words on what looked like fake Latin. As in they looked like they were picked from a bad TV show that couldn't afford someone with actual knowledge of Latin or straight from Google translator.

"Remus," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."

Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it… ?

A caduceus.

Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.

Remus was looking at the chaos like he was smelling something awful.

Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.

"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner."

He galloped away toward the archery range.

I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.

"Well?" Remus prompted. "Go on."

So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself.

There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.

Remus announced, "Percy Jackson, cabin eleven."

"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.

I didn't know what to say, but Remus said, "Undetermined."

Everybody groaned.

A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward.

"Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."

The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.

"This is Luke," Remus said, and his voice sounded happy, like it was filled with pride. Like a guy introducing his cool older brother. I also noticed that he was smiling for the first time I had seen him.

He saw me looking, and his voice hardened again. "He's your counselor for now."

"For now?" I asked.

"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."

I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.

I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.

"How long will I be here?" I asked.

"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."

"How long will that take?"

The campers all laughed.

"Come on," Remus told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."

"I've already seen it."

"Come on." he grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.

Chapter 4 end


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**Percy POV**

When we were a few feet away, Remus said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."

"What?"

He rolled his eyes and mumbled under his breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."

"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy—"

"Don't talk like that!" Remus told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"

"To get killed?"

"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"

I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was _the _Minotaur, the same one in the stories ..."

"Yes."

"Then there's only one."

"Yes."

"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ..."

"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."

"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."

"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they re-form."

I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword-"

"The Fur … I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."

"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"

"I have my ways."

"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"

Remus glanced nervously around like he was afraid someone was listening.

"You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."

"Look, is there anything we can say without it thundering?"I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then I didn't care.

"Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."

I pointed to the first few cabins, and Remus turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or … your parent."

He stared at me, waiting for me to get it.

"My mom is Sally Jackson," I said. "She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."

"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."

"He's dead. I never knew him."

Remus sighed. Clearly, he'd had this conversation before with other kids.

"Your father's not dead, Percy."

"How can you say that? You know him?"

"No, of course not."

"Then how can you say-"

"Because I know you. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."

"You don't know anything about me."

"Are you willing to bet on that?" He raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."

"How-"

"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."

I tried to swallow my embarrassment.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD-you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."

"You sound like … you went through the same thing?"

"Well, not recently. When I was younger and went to a school here, yeah. Now, I go to a school in England. Chiron told you about it, how the gods move around?"

"Yeah."

"Well the monsters follow them around. There aren't a whole lot of monsters over there so it gets boring.

Most of the kids here went through it too. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."

"Ambrosia and nectar."

"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead.

Face it. You're a half-blood."

"A half-blood."

I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.

Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"

I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.

"Clarisse," Remus sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"

"Sure, Prince Magical," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."

"Erre es korakas!" Remus said, rolling his eyes.

Which I somehow understood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded.

"You don't stand a chance."

"We'll pulverize you,"

Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"

"Percy Jackson," Remus said, "Percy this is Clarisse, Daughter of Ares. Don't take anything she says seriously."

"You want to talk to me about being serious with all your hocus-pocus magic and magic book club."

"It's called being civilized. You should try it out someday."

Clarisse growled and looked at me, "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy."

"Percy."

"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."

"Clarisse-" Remus tried to say.

"Stay out of it, Wise Guy."

Said guy's hand whipped to back like he was about to draw a weapon but he decided otherwise (that, or he forgot he didn't have a weapon as I couldn't see any on him), and I didn't really want his help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep. I handed Remus my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.

I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking-as much as I could think with Clarisse ripping my hair out-that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.

Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.

"Like she's 'Big Three' material,"

Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, she was so stupid looking."

Her friends snickered. Remus stood in the corner, face-palming furiously.

Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets.

I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.

Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach. I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.

I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.

She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.

As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.

The entire bathroom was flooded. Remus hadn't been spared. He was dripping wet, but he hadn't been pushed out the door.

He was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.

I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.

I stood up, my legs shaky.

Remus said, "How did you …"

"I don't know."

He put his hand on his pocket and mumbled something. Suddenly all of his clothes were dry again, but I was at that point too confused to question it.

We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new girl. You are totally dead."

I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."

Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.

Remus stared at me. I couldn't tell whether he was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing him.

"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking," he said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."

Chapter 5 end


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Remus POV

Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever we went, campers pointed at Percy and murmured something about toilet water.

I showed her a few more places: the metal shop, the arts-and-crafts room and the climbing wall.

Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.

"I've got training to do," I said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."

"Remus, I'm sorry about the toilets."

"Whatever."

"It wasn't my fault."

I looked at him skeptically. It was quite obvious that it was her fault.

She stared into the lake, looking a bit ashamed. Then I saw two Naiads come and try to draw Percy on their schemes.

Percy looked at them, mouth agape.

"Don't mind them," Remus warned. "Naiads want to eliminate all female competition."

"Naiads," She repeated, looking a bit overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."

I frowned at her. "Don't you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."

"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"

"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."

"Half-human and half-what?"

"I think you know."

"God," She said. "Half-god."

I nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians."

"That's … crazy."

"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"

"But those are just-" She cut off looking thoughtful. "But if all the kids here are half-gods-"

"Demigods," I Interrupted. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."

"Then who's your dad?"

I gripped the railing until my knuckles were white, my werewolf-enhanced strength leaving small impressions on the metal.

I really didn't like to talk about this.

"My dad is a professor at West Point," I said. "I haven't seen him in years. He teaches American history."

"He's human."

"What? You assume it has to be male gods that mingle with mortals and female ones are above it all? How sexist is that"

"Who's your mom, then?"

"Cabin six."

"Meaning?"

I straightened my back. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."

"And my dad?"

"Undetermined," I replied , "like I told you before. Nobody knows."

"Except my mother. She knew."

"Maybe not. Gods don't always reveal their identities."

"My dad would have. He loved her."

I gave her a cautious look. I didn't want to cause her emotional stress this soon after losing her mother.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his daughter. Sometimes it happens."

"You mean sometimes it doesn't?"

I ran my palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always … Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us."

She looked offended. Angry, even.

"So I'm stuck here," she said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"

"It depends," I replied. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force.

The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some demigods, it's too dangerous to leave. They're year-rounders. In the mortal world, they attract monsters. They sense them. They come to challenge them.

Most of the time, they'll ignore them until they're old enough to cause trouble-about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."

"So monsters can't get in here?"

I shook my head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."

"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"

"Practice fights. Practical jokes," I said, wincing.

I had bad experiences with those.

"Practical jokes?"

"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out.

From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."

"So … you're a year-rounder?"

I (once again) shook my head. "Like I said before, I spend rest of the year at a school in England." I pulled my Necklace from under my collar and started to fiddle with it.

"I've been here since I was seven," I said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college."

"Why did you come so young?"

Another subject I really didn't want to discuss.

"None of your business," I said, bluntly.

"Oh." We stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So … I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"

"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless …"

"Unless?"

"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time …"

I trailed off. The last time REALLY hadn't gone well.

At all.

"Back in the sick room," she said, "when you were feeding me that stuff-"

"Ambrosia."

"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice."

I tensed. "So you do know something?"

"Well… no. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"

I involuntarily clenched my fists. "I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal."

"You've been to Olympus?"

"Some of us who were here over Winter Break-Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others-we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."

"But… how did you get there?"

"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor. You are a New Yorker, right?"

"Oh, sure. I understand." She didn't look like she did.

"Right after we visited," I continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting.

A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping … I mean- Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon.

But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something."

She shook her head. I was disappointed once again

I've got to get a quest," I muttered to myself. "I'm not too young. If they would just tell me the problem …"

I could smell barbecue smoke coming from the pavilion and hear Percy's stomach growl. I told her to go on, I'd catch her later. I began envisioning my battle plan for later.

Chapter 6 end


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**A/N Sorry, I apparently uploaded the file for chapter 5 twice. Chapter 6 has now been replaced with the proper story. Also, thanks to all who favorite, followed and reviewed this, you make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. And when I feel warm and fuzzy, I am motivated to upload more. So, everyone wins. Have another chapter two chapters**

Percy POV

Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn.

The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.

"Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."

I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.

I said, "Thanks."

"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"

"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't even believe in gods."

"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier."

The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.

"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.

He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."

"The wing-footed messenger guy."

"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."

I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.

"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.

"Once."

I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.

Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."

He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him—even if he was a counselor—should've steered clear of an un-cool middle-schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.

I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Remus ... twice, she said I might be 'the one.' He said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"

Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."

"What do you mean?"

His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Remus's been dying to get out into the world. He pestered Chiron so much he finally told him he already knew his fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell him the whole thing, but he said Remus wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. He had to wait until...somebody special came to the camp."

"Somebody special?"

"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Remus wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen he's been waiting for. He's getting bored at that school of his and now he's just going stir-crazy. Now, come on, it's dinnertime."

The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.

Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"

The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.

We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods— and when I say out of the woods, I mean _straight _out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.

In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.

At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.

I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.

Remus sat at table six with a bunch of athletic-looking kids, all with his gray eyes and serious expressions. I also noted that his build differed from his siblings. All of the other Athena's kids were athletic and looked like they were in pretty good shape. Remus on the other hand looked thin and bit skeletal even. I did wondered about it for a second but moved on.

Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.

Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"

Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"

Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want—nonalcoholic, of course."

I said, "Cherry Coke."

The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.

Then I had an idea. "_Blue _Cherry Coke."

The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.

I took a cautious sip. Perfect.

I drank a toast to my mother.

She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday...

"Here you go, Percy," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.

I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion.

I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.

"Come on," Luke told me.

As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest straw berry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.

Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."

"You're kidding."

His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.

Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."

I was next.

I wished I knew what god's name to say.

Finally, I made a silent plea. _Whoever you are, tell me. Please._

I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.

When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.

It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.

When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.

Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."

A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.

"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Petrina Jackselson."

Chiron murmured something.

"Er, Percy Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."

Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing-along. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.

Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.

My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.

When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.

That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.

I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.

Chapter 7 end


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

**A/N I apologize if my portrayal of the tactics used is unrealistic, but I did what I could.**

Remus POV

Camp life had returned to its normal boring self. It didn't look like I was going to have my quest any time soon. I had been teaching Percy Ancient Greek and she was learning rather quickly

I had been thinking about who Percy's father was. It was most likely he was one of the 12 Olympians, seeing as the Minotaur wouldn't have bothered with anything less, last time we saw it was with Thalia, child of the Big Three, nor would Hades send the Furies after his own flesh and blood.

It had to be her father so that cut it down to seven.

Ares was unlikely considering she isn't particularly big or threatening, and even Clarisse wouldn't likely have missed it if that were the case.

Apollo was plausible, but I have noted that Percy is horrible with a bow and her linguistic skills were not impressive.

Dionysus was pretty much out because he tended to favor his own and there had been pretty opposite reaction from him.

Hephaestus was possible considering he could have manipulated the plumb machinery, but there had been no further sign of that in Crafts lessons.

Hermes was also possible but Luke would probably have noticed.

Poseidon was unlikely to have broken his oath seeing as it was he who suggested it at the first place, though I was beginning to suspect Percy was daughter of one of the Big Three.

Zeus was most likely candidate as he had already broken his oath before, and other members of the Big three were unlikely.

Finally it was time for Capture The Flag.

I had been doing some Charms work for summer, pushing my cabin as hard as possible and drawing up battle-plans. Percy probably wouldn't like the final version but at least she'd get the opportunity to settle it out with Clarisse and we'd get a chance to get her recognized by her father.

I had heard she'd disarmed Luke but I didn't put much credit to those rumors. She'd need to be superb swordswoman to have even a chance whilst there's nobody except Dionysus and possibly Chiron on the Camp who could take Luke on in a fair fight (Rather ironic, considering his father) and even on unfair fights he won most of the time.

The full moon had been two days ago and I was still a bit grumpy. I had hunted down and eaten a deer in the forest and the horrible taste of blood and raw meat just wouldn't leave.

After dinner, it was finally time. Myself and two of my siblings ran up front with our banner. From the other side, Clarisse and two of her siblings carried in their banner.

"The Athena cabin is allying with Apollo and Hermes cabins." Chiron announced. "The Ares cabin is allying with the Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus."

I had wanted the two largest cabins(and the fact that they had exactly the specialities that I needed didn't hurt) and I didn't want to go up against Luke so I had, after some trading and agreements gotten those two on my side. Unfortunately that left me with nothing to bargain with the rest of the Cabins so Cabin Five got those.

"Heroes," Chiron continued."You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!" he spread out his arms and the tables filled with helmets, swords, spears, and shields.

I didn't take any of them since I had already gotten my painstakingly Featherweight-Charmed armor on and my knife and wand were always on me. I also had a map that I'd bought from a wizard store in Diagon alley (I named it BattleMap), that could track tagged people and show any enemies near them showing me the general layout of the battlelines. I had tagged all of my team with the tracking spell earlier, so that I could coordinate between the groups.

It was a relic of a bygone era as apparition, floo network and brooms had made large-scale battles disappear almost completely from the wizard world. Nowadays, wars were fought more like guerrilla warfare on both sides and battles were swiftly over, brutal and on a limited area. Since the map had only a relatively small range, couldn't cover more than one area at a time and required it to be reconfigured for every new battlefield, it just wasn't practical for wizards to use anymore.

But it did serve my purposes perfectly.

"Blue team, spread out!" I yelled.

"Hey." Percy came up tripping on her equipment.

I ignored him.

"So what's the plan? Got any magic items you can loan me?"

I checked my pocket; my wand was still there. Then I looked at her. Didn't anyone tell her newbies don't get any magic items?

Apparently not.

"Just watch Clarisse's spear, you don't want that thing touching you. Otherwise, do not worry. We will take the banner from Ares. Has Luke given you your job?" I asked.

"Border Patrol. What does that mean?"

"It's easy." I assured her. "Stand by the creek, keep the reds away. Leave the rest to me. Athena always has a plan." I ran ahead.

At Hogwarts I had come to know that offensive magic is almost useless against demigods, monsters or pretty much anything related to the gods. I suspect it's part of an agreement between Hecate and the Olympians so that the Gods ignore her people and in return, wizards are powerless against demigods.

I had managed to work around that by using magic indirectly, for defense and for utility. While Reductor curse wouldn't kill a demigod, it could shatter the floor under them and allow me to close in, and Protego could still protect from their attacks.

I had come to know that whilst Clarisse's best fighters were off chasing Percy, the rest of the Red team would form two groups, that would attack simultaneously from center and right flank.

They had grown bold from the several previous battles where I appeared cautious and unwilling to commit to an attack and most likely left a skeleton defense force. I regularly changed my overall tactics in order to confuse the enemy strategists, so I would have thought they would have come to expect it by now, but apparently Clarisse's stupidity rubs off on her advisors. I had split my force to one half that would stop one of the enemy pushes, Luke's group that would make a speedy assault on their flag whilst I led a force of our teams best archers and skirmishers to stall and harass the second group. I had arranged with Luke to retreat in certain formation, depending on whether or not they got the flag, so that I could see it and rearrange the battleplan accordingly

We didn't need to stop them, just slow them down until Luke could take the flag.

I sped through the forest with my team following me, using Homonum Revelio spell to keep track of the enemy force on this flank. It appeared they were moving in two equally sized groups, keeping some distance between themselves.

Perfect.

"Incendio!" I yelled, creating a fire that spread between the advancing red forces. Whilst the fire I had that started it wouldn't hurt them, the flames that spread over to them would be a normal fire and that would.

This cut the second group off from us and funneled the first one to my waiting archers, who started to take potshots at them.

Just before they reached us I ordered the archers to retreat and led the few of my melee fighters on counterattack.

I engaged one of the Ares campers, who was leading the charge. I noted that he was quite new, probably eager to prove himself and most importantly, I hadn't sparred against him yet.

This meant that with my slim build I would look quite a pushover and by the sneering look he was giving me, he agreed. After exchanging a few blows and trying to appear weak, I went on the offensive. Surprised that I wasn't such an easy victim, He was disarmed and and knocked out with the blunt end of my knife. It really wasn't an ideal weapon but I kept it for sentimentality and because I'd already built my fighting style around it and didn't want to change.

My next opponent was an older girl from Hephaestus Cabin and wasn't as gullible as her teammate was. I had sparred against her before and I knew she wouldn't underestimate my capabilities as a fighter.

Unfortunately for her, she underestimated my capabilities as a wizard.

A quick Flipendo spell to the ground beneath her feet knocked her off-balance and allowed me to punch her out.

The skirmish continued until I noticed the signal from my archers that they had reached position.

"Blue Team, SCATTER!" I yelled. My team disengaged and scattered around, whilst the archers started to fire again, covering our retreat. We had lost four of our team in exchange for seven from theirs, and they had lost another seven to our archers.

The Red force stayed together, knowing we would pick them off one-by-one if they'd split up to follow us. I had ordered my unit to target the older campers so that their chain of command would be in shambles. It looked like one of the Ares campers took command, but he had quickly gotten in an argument with another one from his own Cabin. The second one was apparently trying to claim command on the grounds of being older than the first one, whilst the first one was claiming to be a better fighter.

I saw an opportunity for an attack and signaled the rest of my group including the archers to switch to melee and regroup for an ambush.

I ordered my team to attack whilst I used Quietus to cover the sound of our attack.

They didn't stand a chance

With no clear chain of command and everyone too interested in the argument, we took them completely by surprise.

After a brief and one-sided battle the remnants of the enemy retreated back to their base.

I used Homonum Revelio to look for the second enemy group, and discovered the flames had spread as I wanted them to, effectively neutralizing the second group from the battle. The fire had spread over to the nearby river, which the enemy in their heavy armor couldn't cross, and by the time they managed to go around the fire the battle would be over.

I checked BattleMap for how the center force was doing, and saw that they were getting pushed back, but it didn't matter because I saw Luke's force coming back home, moving in a pre-agreed-upon formation, that signaled to me they had the flag.

The battle was basically over.

Chapter 8 end


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Remus POV

In the map, I saw Percy still fighting Clarisse and her goons. I had forgotten about her entirely.

I ordered most of my group to reinforce the center position, took four of my teammates with me and went to investigate, leaving the rest to stay in place should the enemy we routed decide to turn back.

When I reached the point Percy had been assigned to I saw Clarisse being knocked out by Percy and several of her inner circle lying around in the water.

Percy appeared to be watching Luke retreat to our side of the river whilst the rest of the blue team was cheering, so I ordered my teammates to lift the knocked-out Ares campers out of the water so they wouldn't drown.

"Not bad." I said. "Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?"

"You set me up, you put me here because you knew that Clarisse would come looking for me. While you sent Luke to get the flag, you had it all planned out." she said ,now angry.

"I told you Athena always has a plan."

"A plan to pulverize me!" she yelled.

"I came as fast as I could." I lied. I had forgotten about her. "But you didn't need help." I looked at her arm, it was cut. "How did you get that?" I asked.

"Sword cut, what did you think?" she said.

"No. It was a sword cut. Look at it."

She looked down and saw the cut fade away.

"I-I don't get it."

"Step out of the water, Percy." I said, thinking. It couldn't possibly be that, but I saw no other explanation seeing as Apollo's gift of healing would have been accompanied with a burst of sunlight.

"What-?"

"Just do it."

She came out of the creek and almost collapsed. I caught her.

"Oh, Styx, this is not good. I didn't want… I assumed it would be Zeus…" I said thinking about the Big Three's oath not to have children. Percy was a daughter of Poseidon.

Suddenly a defining growl came. A hellhound by my luck.

I turned around.

It was a hellhound.

God(s)dammit

"Percy run!" I shouted.

The campers' cheering had died instantly. "Stand ready! My bow!" Chiron shouted.

I drew my knife, stepping in front of Percy. The hellhound leaped.

The hound was too fast.

It leaped over me-an enormous shadow with teeth-and hit Percy claws raking her armor and flesh.

Percy stumbled backwards whilst the hellhound pressed on. I didn't dare run help her in fear of interfering with Chiron and other's aim.

There was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other. From the hounds neck sprouted a cluster of arrows. The monster fell dead at Percy's feet.

Chiron trotted up next to us, a bow in his hand, his face grim.

"Di immortales!" I cursed.

"That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't … they're not supposed to …"

"Someone summoned it," Chiron said. "Someone inside the camp."

Luke came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.

Clarisse yelled, "It's all Percy's fault! Percy summoned it!"

"Be quiet, child," Chiron told her.

We watched the body of the hellhound melt into shadow, soaking into the ground until it disappeared.

"You're wounded," I told her. "Quick, Percy, get in the water."

"I'm okay."

It looked like the adrenaline was acting as painkiller. I knew from experience that soon she'd collapse once it wore off.

"No, you're not," I said. "Chiron, watch this."

She stumbled back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around us.

I saw the cut on her flesh close up and broken bones mend.

"Look, I-I don't know why," she said, trying to apologize. "I'm sorry…."

"Percy, um…" I said pointing above her head.

It was a trident with green light in the background.

"Your father, this is really not good." I said.

"It is determined." Chiron broke the silence.

"My father?" Percy asked, I could tell her mind was spinning.

"Poseidon, Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, daughter of the Sea God."

Chapter 9 end


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

**A/N Here are some more chapters for you. One of the things I didn't like about the PJO series is (And I believe that this hasn't been touched upon in any of the books) is how Annabeth basically is reduced next to uselessness in fights once the stronger demigods and threats start to show up, and she just accepts it. One of my goals for this fic is to show(or at least hope to show) what happens, when someone trains pretty much non-stop for five years, and then someone just swoops in and with a couple of weeks of training proceeds to render the first guy obsolete, and specifically how will he react to it. Also; reviews=more chapters.**

**I'm skipping all of the plot exposition since it basically remains the same.**

Remus POV

The revelation of Percy's father changed everything. Most of what I had heard finally made sense, and I managed to figure most of it out.

Really, it was quite obvious.

Somebody stole something important from Zeus, something that another god wouldn't have been able to steal, which made me think it was his master bolt.

Zeus blames Poseidon, Poseidon gets offended, things deteriorate.

Poseidon knows he didn't steal it but knows that Zeus wouldn't believe it so he claims his daughter, wagering that she'll be able to find the master bolt and bring it to Zeus as peace offering.

This also made me sure that she was the one Chiron mentioned, so it was only a matter of time before the time for quest would come, so I sped up my training and prepared,

The dryads were furious at me for burning large swathe of the forest but I felt it was worth it. Though I had to avoid going near the trees alone.

I managed to overhear Mr. D contacting Mount Olympus. It looked like that Percy was going to either be imploded by Zeus or go on a quest for the master bolt, so I immediately went to Chiron to volunteer for the quest. He wasn't even curious as to how I knew about it (which takes all the fun out of it) and started to explain the specifics of the quest and his own thoughts on the matter.

"We will be informing Percy about this next morning. I want you to be here then."

I nodded and left to pack my things.

Knife? Check.

Wand? Check.

BattleMap (It could come in handy)? Check.

Featherweight-Charmed armor? Check.

Food? Clothing? Money? I took one of Cabin six's pre-made quest backpacks (I was reeeeally bored one day…) and stuffed my extra belongings in there. Check.

Several Spellbooks that might come handy? Check.

The next full moon wouldn't be until long after the solstice so fortunately I didn't have to worry about that.

The next morning I made arrangements with Malcolm, my second-in-command for my absence, and then it was off to Main house, waiting nearby whilst Grover got Percy, feeling a bit bored. Percy's arrival did nothing to lessen that feeling, because Chiron still had to explain everything to Percy. I tuned out the conversation and waited for my cue to step in.

"Two companions may accompany you," Chiron said. "Grover is one. The other has already volunteered, if you will accept his help."

That was my cue.

"Gee," Percy said, feigning surprise. "Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a quest like this?"

I walked around the corner

"I've been waiting a long time for a quest, Kelp Head," I said. "Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up."

"If you do say so yourself," she said. "I suppose you have a plan, Wise Guy?"

"Of course. Do you want my help or not?"

I knew she wouldn't refuse because she didn't really have anyone else to take with her. That and I'd murder her in her sleep if she didn't.

"A trio. That'll work."

"Excellent," Chiron said. "This afternoon, we can take you as far as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own."

Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather.

"No time to waste," Chiron said. "I think you should all get packing."

Grover and Percy left to pack their things.

I went to wait for them

Chapter 10 end


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Percy POV

My mind still reeling from all of the information I had received within short amount of time, it didn't take me long to pack. I decided to leave the Minotaur horn in my cabin, which left me only an extra change of clothes and a toothbrush to stuff in a backpack Grover had found for me.

The camp store loaned me one hundred dollars in mortal money and twenty golden drachmas. These coins were as big as Girl Scout cookies and had images of various Greek gods stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other.

The ancient mortal drachmas had been silver, Chiron told us, but Olympians never used less than pure gold. Chiron said the coins might come in handy for non-mortal transactions—whatever that meant.

He gave Remus and me each a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares, to be used only in emergencies, if we were seriously hurt. It was god food, Chiron reminded us. It would cure us of almost any injury, but it was lethal to mortals. Too much of it would make a half-blood very, very feverish. An overdose would burn us up, literally.

Remus was bringing with him a massive hoard of supplies on his backpack. He carried another one of those books I'd seen him read all summer (you know, one with all the fake latin), written in Ancient Greek, to read when he got bored, and a long bronze knife, hidden in his shirt sleeve. I had no idea how he could fit all that in his backpack or even carry it, but I guess camp activity just makes you really fit.

I was sure the knife would get us busted the first time we went through a metal detector.

Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore a green rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 12 and Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday," both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes.

We waved good-bye to the other campers, took one last look at the strawberry fields, the ocean, and the Big House, then hiked up Half-Blood Hill to the tall pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus.

Chiron was waiting for us in his wheelchair. Next to him stood the surfer dude I'd seen when I was recovering in the sick room. According to Grover, the guy was the camp's head of security. He supposedly had eyes all over his body so he could never be surprised. Today, though, he was wearing a chauffeur's uniform, so I could only see extra peepers on his hands, face and neck.

"This is Argus," Chiron told me. "He will drive you into the city, and, er, well, keep an eye on things."

I heard footsteps behind us.

Luke came running up the hill, carrying a pair of basketball shoes.

"Hey!" he panted. "Glad I caught you."

Remus's expression suddenly changed to happy, the way it always did when Luke was around.

"Just wanted to say good luck," Luke told me. "And I thought ... um, maybe you could use these."

He handed me the sneakers, which looked pretty normal. They even smelled kind of normal.

Luke said, _"Maia!"_

White bird's wings sprouted out of the heels, startling me so much, I dropped them. The shoes flapped around on the ground until the wings folded up and disappeared.

"Awesome!" Grover said.

Luke smiled. "Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad. Of course, I don't use them much these days..." His expression turned sad.

I didn't know what to say. It was cool enough that Luke had come to say good-bye. I'd been afraid he might resent me for getting so much attention the last few days. But here he was giving me a magic gift...

"Hey, man," I said. "Thanks."

"Listen, Percy ..." Luke looked uncomfortable. "A lot of hopes are riding on you. So just ... kill some monsters for me, okay?"

We shook hands. Luke patted Grover's head between his horns, then gave a good-bye hug to Remus, who looked like he might die from happiness. (I got the impression that Remus considered Luke as his older brother)

After Luke was gone, I told him, "Your face might get stuck on happy-mode, and that would just look creepy."

"Shut up."

"You let him capture the flag instead of you, didn't you?"

"His skills were most suited to taking the flag and I was needed elsewhere… Why am I even explaining this to you?"

He stomped down the other side of the hill, where a white SUV waited on the shoulder of the road. Argus followed, jingling his car keys.

I picked up the flying shoes and had a sudden bad feeling. I looked at Chiron. "I won't be able to use these, will I?"

He shook his head. "Luke meant well, Percy. But taking to the air ... that would not be wise for you."

I nodded, disappointed, but then I got an idea. "Hey, Grover. You want a magic item?"

His eyes lit up. "Me?"

Pretty soon we'd laced the sneakers over his fake feet, and the world's first flying goat boy was ready for launch.

_"Maia!" _he shouted.

He got off the ground okay, but then fell over sideways so his backpack dragged through the grass. The winged shoes kept bucking up and down like tiny broncos.

"Practice," Chiron called after him. "You just need practice!"

"Aaaaa!" Grover went flying sideways down the hill like a possessed lawn mower, heading toward the van.

Before I could follow, Chiron caught my arm. "I should have trained you better, Percy," he said. "If only I had more time. Hercules, Jason—they all got more training."

"That's okay. I just wish—"

I stopped myself because I was about to sound like a brat. I was wishing my dad had given me a cool magic item to help on the quest, something as good as Luke's flying shoes or something.

"What am I thinking?" Chiron cried. "I can't let you get away without this."

He pulled a pen from his coat pocket and handed it to me. It was an ordinary disposable ballpoint, black ink, removable cap. Probably cost thirty cents.

"Gee," I said. "Thanks."

"Percy, that's a gift from your father. I've kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the prophecy is clear to me now. You are the one."

I remembered the field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when I'd vaporized Mrs. Dodds. Chiron had thrown me a pen that turned into a sword. Could this be ... ?

I took off the cap, and the pen grew longer and heavier in my hand. In half a second, I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather-wrapped grip, and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. It was the first weapon that actually felt balanced in my hand.

"The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into," Chiron told me.

"Its name is Anaklusmos."

"'Riptide,'" I translated, surprised the Ancient Greek came so easily.

"Use it only for emergencies," Chiron said, "and only against monsters. No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely necessary, of course, but this sword wouldn't harm them in any case."

I looked at the wickedly sharp blade. "What do you mean it wouldn't harm mortals?" How could it not?"

"The sword is celestial bronze. Forged by the Cyclopes, tempered in the heart of Mount Etna, cooled in the River Lethe. It's deadly to monsters, to any creature from the Underworld, provided they don't kill you first. But the blade will pass through mortals like an illusion. They simply are not important enough for the blade to kill.

And I should warn you: as a demigod, you can be killed by either celestial or normal weapons. You are _twice _as vulnerable."

"Good to know."

"Now recap the pen."

I touched the pen cap to the sword tip and instantly Riptide shrank to a ballpoint pen again. I tucked it in my pocket, a little nervous, because I was famous for losing pens at school.

"You can't," Chiron said.

"Can't what?"

"Lose the pen," he said.

"It is enchanted. It will always reappear in your pocket. Try it."

I was wary, but I threw the pen as far as I could down the hill and watched it disappear in the grass.

"It may take a few moments," Chiron told me. "Now check your pocket."

Sure enough, the pen was there.

"Okay, that's _extremely _cool," I admitted. "But what if a mortal sees me pulling out a sword?"

Chiron smiled. "Mist is a powerful thing, Percy."

"Mist?"

"Yes. Read _The Iliad. _It's full of references to the stuff. Whenever divine or monstrous elements mix with the mortal world, they generate Mist, which obscures the vision of humans.

You will see things just as they are, being a half-blood, but humans will interpret things quite differently. Remarkable, really, the lengths to which humans will go to fit things into their version of reality."

I put Riptide back in my pocket.

For the first time, the quest felt real. I was actually leaving Half-Blood Hill.

I was heading west with no adult supervision, no backup plan, not even a cell phone. (Chiron said cell phones were traceable by monsters; if we used one, it would be worse than sending up a flare.) I had no weapon stronger than a sword to fight off monsters and reach the Land of the Dead.

"Chiron ..." I said. "When you say the gods are immortal... I mean, there was a time _before _them, right?"

"Four ages before them, actually. The Time of the Titans was the Fourth Age, sometimes called the Golden Age, which is definitely a misnomer. This, the time of Western civilization and the rule of Zeus, is the Fifth Age."

"So what was it like ... before the gods?"

Chiron pursed his lips. "Even I am not old enough to remember that, child, but I know it was a time of darkness and savagery for mortals. Kronos, the lord of the Titans, called his reign the Golden Age because men lived innocent and free of all knowledge. But that was mere propaganda. The Titan king cared nothing for your kind except as appetizers or a source of cheap entertainment. It was only in the early reign of Lord Zeus, when Prometheus the good Titan brought fire to mankind, that your species began to progress, and even then Prometheus was branded a radical thinker. Zeus punished him severely, as you may recall. Of course, eventually the gods warmed to humans, and Western civilization was born."

"But the gods can't die now, right? I mean, as long as Western civilization is alive, they're alive. So ... even if I failed, nothing could happen so bad it would mess up _everything, _right?"

Chiron gave me a melancholy smile. "No one knows how long the Age of the West will last, Percy. The gods are immortal, yes. But then, so were the Titans. _They _still exist, locked away in their various prisons, forced to endure end less pain and punishment, reduced in power, but still very much alive. May the Fates forbid that the gods should ever suffer such a doom, or that we should ever return to the darkness and chaos of the past. All we can do, child, is follow our destiny."

"Our destiny ... assuming we know what that is."

"Relax," Chiron told me. "Keep a clear head. And remember, you may be about to prevent the biggest war in human history."

"Relax," I said. "I'm very relaxed."

When I got to the bottom of the hill, I looked back. Under the pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus, Chiron was now standing in full horse-man form, holding his bow high in salute. Just your typical summer-camp send-off by your typical centaur.

Argus drove us out of the countryside and into western Long Island. It felt weird to be on a highway again, Remus and Grover sitting next to me as if we were normal carpoolers. After two weeks at Half-Blood Hill, the real world seemed like a fantasy. I found myself staring at every McDonald's, every kid in the back of his parents' car, every billboard and shopping mall.

Chapter 11 end


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Percy POV

"So far so good," I told Remus. "Ten miles and not a single monster."

He gave me an irritated look. "It's bad luck to talk that way Kelp Head."

"Remind me again—why do you hate me so much?"

"I don't hate you."

"Could've fooled me."

He stopped fiddling with his necklace. "Look ... we're just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals."

"Why?"

He sighed. "How many reasons do you want? One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is incrediblydisrespectful. Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her."

"They must really like olives."

"Oh, forget it."

"Now, if she'd invented pizza—_that _I could understand."

"I said, forget it!"

In the front seat, Argus smiled. He didn't say anything, but one blue eye on the back of his neck winked at me.

Traffic slowed us down in Queens. By the time we got into Manhattan it was sunset and starting to rain.

Argus dropped us at the Greyhound Station on the Upper East Side, not far from my mom and Gabe's apartment. Taped to a mailbox was a soggy flyer with my picture on it: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?

I ripped it down before Remus and Grover could notice.

Argus unloaded our bags, made sure we got our bus tickets, then drove away, the eye on the back of his hand opening to watch us as he pulled out of the parking lot.

I thought about how close I was to my old apartment. On a normal day, my mom would be home from the candy store by now. Smelly Gabe was probably up there right now, playing poker, not even missing her.

Grover shouldered his backpack. He gazed down the street in the direction I was looking. "You want to know why she married him, Percy?"

I stared at him. "Were you reading my mind or some thing?"

"Just your emotions." He shrugged.

"Guess I forgot to tell you satyrs can do that. You were thinking about your mom and your stepdad, right?"

I nodded, wondering what else Grover might've forgotten to tell me.

"Your mom married Gabe for _you," _Grover told me. "You call him 'Smelly,' but you've got no idea. The guy has this aura…. Yuck. I can smell him from here. I can smell traces of him on you, and you haven't been near him for a week."

"It's true, he, and by extension, you smell like a week old pizza," Remus said.

"Thanks," I said. "Where's the nearest shower?"

"You should be grateful, Percy. Your stepfather smells so repulsively human he could mask the presence of any demigod. As soon as I took a whiff inside his Camaro, I knew: Gabe has been covering your scent for years. If you hadn't lived with him every summer, you probably would've been found by monsters a long time ago.

Your mom stayed with him to protect you. She was a smart lady. She must've loved you a lot to put up with that guy—if that makes you feel any better."

It didn't, but I forced myself not to show it.

I'll see her again, I thought. She isn't gone.

I wondered if Grover could still read my emotions, mixed up as they were. I was glad he and Remus were with me, but I felt guilty that I hadn't been straight with them. I hadn't told them the real reason I'd said yes to this crazy quest.

The truth was, I didn't care about retrieving Zeus's lightning bolt, or saving the world, or even helping my father out of trouble. The more I thought about it, I resented Poseidon for never visiting me, never helping my mom, never even sending a lousy child-support check. He'd only claimed me because he needed a job done.

All I cared about was my mom. Hades had taken her unfairly, and Hades was going to give her back.

_You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend, _the Oracle whispered in my mind. _You will fail to save what matters most in the end._

_Shut up, _I told it.

The rain kept coming down.

I got restless waiting for the bus and decided to play some Hacky Sack with one of Grover's apples.

The game ended when I tossed the apple toward Grover and it got too close to his mouth. In one mega goat bite, our Hacky Sack disappeared—core, stem, and all.

Grover blushed. He tried to apologize, but I was too busy cracking up, and even Remus was smirking.

Finally the bus came. As we stood in line to board, Grover started looking around, sniffing the air like he smelled his favorite school cafeteria delicacy—enchiladas.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said tensely. "Maybe it's nothing."

But I could tell it wasn't nothing. I started looking over my shoulder, too.

I was relieved when we finally got on board and found seats together in the back of the bus. We stowed our back packs. Remus kept fidgeting his hands on his pockets.

The bus went on for several hours. It stopped near a gas station to pick up more passengers.

As the last passengers got on, Remus clamped his hand onto my shoulder.

"Percy."

An old lady had just boarded the bus. She wore a crumpled velvet dress, lace gloves, and a shapeless orange-knit hat that shadowed her face, and she carried a big paisley purse. When she tilted her head up, her black eyes glittered, and my heart skipped a beat.

It was Mrs. Dodds. Older, more withered, but definitely the same evil face.

I scrunched down in my seat.

Behind her came two more old ladies: one in a green hat, one in a purple hat. Otherwise they looked exactly like Mrs. Dodds—same gnarled hands, paisley handbags, wrinkled velvet dresses. Triplet demon grandmothers.

They sat in the front row, right behind the driver. The two on the aisle crossed their legs over the walkway, making an X. It was casual enough, but it sent a clear message: nobody leaves.

The bus pulled out of the station, and we headed through the water-slick roads. "She didn't stay dead long," I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering. "I thought you said they could be dispelled for a lifetime."

"I said if you're _lucky_," Remus said. "You're obviously not."

"All three of them," Grover whimpered. _"Di immortales!"_

"It's okay," Remus said, obviously thinking hard. "The Furies. The three worst monsters from the Underworld. No problem. No problem. We'll just slip out the windows."

"They don't open," Grover moaned.

"A back exit?" He suggested.

There wasn't one. Even if there had been, it wouldn't have helped. By that time, we had reached a tunnel that would, according to the sign near it, go on for almost a mile.

"They won't attack us with witnesses around," I said. "Will they?"

"Mortals don't have good eyes," Remus reminded me. "Their brains can only process what they see through the Mist."

"They'll see three old ladies killing us, won't they?"

He thought about it. "Hard to say. But we can't count on mortals for help. Maybe an emergency exit in the roof ... ?"

We hit the tunnel, and the bus went dark except for the running lights down the aisle. It was eerily quiet without the sound of the rain.

Mrs. Dodds got up. In a flat voice, as if she'd rehearsed it, she announced to the whole bus: "I need to use the rest-room."

"So do I," said the second sister.

"So do I," said the third sister.

They all started coming down the aisle.

Remus was mumbling.

"I haven't got anything else handy enough… got it!"

"I've got it," Remus said, clearing his throat. "Percy, break the window."

"What?"

"Break the window and get ready to jump on my mark. Both of you. I can slow them down."

"Are you nuts, we'll get squis—"

"I have a plan," Remus said. "Trust me.

"I can't just leave you."

"Don't worry about me," he replied. "Get ready!"

My hands trembled. I felt like a coward, but I took the cap off of Anaklusmos and smashed the window.

I started to get ready to jump.

Mrs. Dodds stopped, and looked straight at me. My heart was pounding. She must have seen us.

The old ladies were not old ladies anymore. Their faces were still the same—I guess those couldn't get any uglier— but their bodies had shriveled into leathery brown hag bodies with bat's wings and hands and feet like gargoyle claws. Their handbags had turned into fiery whips.

The Furies screamed at us, lashing their whips, hissing: "Where is it? Where?"

The other people on the bus were screaming, cowering in their seats. They saw _something, _all right.

The furies charged. Remus drew some sort of stick from his pocket

"Remus?"

"Hold on… EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

A silvery, smoky creature emerged from the tip of the stick, charging at the three.

The furies screamed, cracking their whips and screeching in fury and what appeared to be pain.

The silvery creature slowly vanished and the Furies began to recover.

Remus brandished his stick at us, and yelled "What are you waiting for? JUMP!"

I was just about to question the validity of a plan that involved jumping out of a moving vehicle, but then I remembered that the other option was to stay in a bus full of innocents and three very angry devil-grannies.

I jumped, quickly followed by Grover and Remus.

I was excepting asphalt to meet my face any moment now, but then I heard Remus's voice shouting. "Immobulis!"

It was like someone had frozen me in the air but he feeling immediately let go. It was thoroughly unpleasant but it slowed our speed significantly.

"Pluma pondus!"

I felt a weird tingling all over myself, and then I saw ground rapidly approaching. I remembered Camp instructor showing what I should do when falling at high speed. You should try to roll with it and not hit at a straight angle.

I tried to do that and I apparently did it a bit too well, seeing as I ricocheted off the ground as soon as I hit it. Remus and Grover did the same.

The next car's driver behind the bus was treated to an odd sight of three pre-teens flying over his car.

Fortunately the tunnel made turn so that we next fell on the sidewalk.

This time landing hurt as we hit the wall and fell down in lump on the sidewalk. I was feeling oddly light.

Remus was still brandishing his stick and muttered "Finito Incantantem."

I felt normal again and we all started to get up.

"What the h*** was that?"

"No time to explain. Look."

The furies had left the bus and were flying towards us with murderous expressions on their withered faces.

"Perseus Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said, landing before us, in an accent that was definitely from somewhere farther south than Georgia. "You have offended the gods. You shall die."

"I liked you better as a math teacher," I told her.

She growled.

I took the ballpoint pen out of my pocket and uncapped it, dropping my backpack to the ground. Riptide elongated into a shimmering double-edged sword.

Remus slipped his knife to his hand, though he looked rather tired, while Grover took a stray metal can, ready to throw.

The Furies hesitated.

Mrs. Dodds had felt Riptide's blade before. She obviously didn't like seeing it again.

"Your bag of tricks has run out. Submit now," she hissed. "And you will not suffer eternal torment."

"Nice try," I told her.

"We just wanted to even the battlefield, we're far from spent" Remus added in.

Mrs. Dodds lashed her whip around my sword hand while the Furies on the either side lunged at me.

My hand felt like it was wrapped in molten lead, but I managed not to drop Riptide. I stuck the Fury on the left with its hilt, sending her toppling backward into the driving lane, hitting a car and exploded into dust. I turned and looked at Mrs. Dodds. Remus stabbed the right one with his knife and took Mrs. Dodds in a wrestler's hold and yanked her backward while Grover ripped the whip out of her hands.

"Ow!" he yelled. "Ow! Hot! Hot!"

Mrs. Dodds was trying to get Remus off her back. She kicked, clawed, hissed and bit, but Remus held on with surprising strength while Grover got Mrs. Dodds's legs tied up in her own whip. Finally, I kicked her backward into the ground. Mrs. Dodds tried to get up, but she didn't have room to flap her bat wings, so she kept falling down.

"Zeus will destroy you!" she promised. "Hades will have your soul!"

_"Braccas meas vescimini!"_ I yelled.

I wasn't sure where the Latin came from.

I think it meant "Eat my pants!"

Thunder shook the air. The hair rose on the back of my neck.

Remus took some sort of device from his backpack. It looked like metal ball the size of my fist, with some sort of mechanism on its upside and some sort of goo on the other side. He stuck the gooey side on Mrs. Dodds.

It started ticking

"Get moving!" Remus yelled at me. "Now!" I didn't need any encouragement.

We barely managed to leave the tunnel before-

**_BOOOOOM!_**

The tunnel exploded, fire leaking from its entrance. An angry wail from inside told me Mrs. Dodds was not yet dead.

"Run!" Remus said. "She's calling for reinforcements! We have to get out of here!"

We plunged into the woods as the rain poured down, the flames raging behind us, and nothing but darkness ahead.

Chapter 12 end


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

**Remus POV**

So there we were, Percy, Grover and me, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses. It was terrible

Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror.

"Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."

Percy looked like she was pretty much in shock herself. The explosion still rang in my sensitive ears. But I kept pulling us along, saying: "Come on! The farther away we get, the better."

"All our money was back there," She reminded me. "Our food and clothes. Everything."

"Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to leave them behind—"

"I thought your "plan" was going to take care of that."

"Do you know how long I had to make that plan? a Whole half a minute."

"Isn't Athena always supposed to have a plan"

I growled at her in frustration and started to push forwards.

Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans ... a perfectly good bag of tin cans."

We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry.

After a few minutes, I decided that we should rest for the day the Patronus had taken a lot out of me. We sat down in a small clearing and made camp there

Percy fell down next to me. "Look, I..." I said to her, my voice faltering. I supposed I was sorry for snapping at her like that. She was still a newbie, Daughter of Poseidon or not. I was the senior camper and should be able to deal with stress without transferring it onto others. "I appreciate you trusting me, okay? That was really brave."

"We're a team, right?"

I was silent for a few moments. "It's just that if you died ... aside from the fact that it would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world."

The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness, too much for even werewolf-night vision considering I was very tired. I couldn't see much anything except the gleam of Anaklusmos. Really, that should have been my first clue that the darkness wasn't natural. I could normally see even in complete darkness.

"You have been living at Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" she asked me.

"No ... I do spend my summers at Camp and go to school in England. I told you about this before. My dad—"

"The history professor."

"Yeah. It didn't work out for me living at home. I mean, Camp Half-Blood _is _my home." I was rushing my words out now, starting to get nervous at the rather sensitive topic.

"At camp you train and train. In the school you study and study and study. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not."

I wasn't sure which of us I was trying to convince.

"You're pretty good with that knife," she said.

"You think so?"

"Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by me."

I smiled at her even though she probably couldn't see it.

Our discussion was interrupted by a shrill _toot-toot-toot, _like the sound of an owl being tortured.

"Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried.

"Just stop it and let's go to sleep! I'll take watch and wake one of you up when its your turn," I said, quickly casting _Lumos, _and settled in.

I was looking into the darkness around us, my eyes barely holding open. I really should have been sleeping, but I didn't want to give the first watch to the newbie and Grover was still in shock. I was the more experienced one, and I should bear responsibility.

A scent on the wind picked my interest. It smelled vaguely familiar, like I'd smelled it before. For some reason I kept thinking it was something important, but the reason kept on evading my thoughts. I was just about to wake up Percy for her watch, when I looked at the shadows my Lumos spell threw into the tress, and it hit me.

Hellhounds.

Lots of them.

I shook Percy awake.

"What's going on?"

"I smell monsters. And this darkness isn't natural."

"What do you mean?"

"Look at the shadows"

She looked at them, and saw what I had.

When the light flickered, you could see the shadows take the shape of some sort of creatures, that looked like they were eating the light.

"Lightdevourers. Associated with Hades and the Underworld. Appear near large concentrations of Shadow-associated Monsters. Really, I should have noticed this sooner. Plus, it reeks of hellhounds."

"It's true," noted Grover, having been woken by our chatting. "How come you didn't notice this before?"

"Look. I was tired, and I still am. At least I noticed before it was too late," I said angrily. I shouldn't have been mad at Grover, he was just as tired as I was and probably a heck of a lot more scared.

"So… What do we do about them?"

"I… We should try and create more light. Overwhelm those little bastards. It should also draw the Hellhounds in."

"Are you crazy? Why would you want to draw them in?"

" "Control where, when and how the battle commences, and you are halfway to victory."

None of us will be able to sleep now, and we should fight when we still are capable. Our ability to battle will only degrade by waiting, and they will find us eventually."

"Is that a quote from some famous General or something?"

"If it is, I haven't ever heard of it. I made up my own guidelines a while ago. I quote them because for some reason it makes me sound more professional as a strategist.

"Fine, let's make a campfire," She said, gathering some wood. "Do you have a igniting spell or something?"

"Yes, but I don't really want to waste any energy. You could just drain the dampness out of the woods and use the matchsticks that are in our backpa-

Oh.

_Incendio_!"

The light of the fire seemed to lift the threatening atmosphere of our little camp, and the shadow-creatures disappeared.

Then we heard the howls.

They were long, and unnatural. Percy and Grover looked shaken, but it didn't bother me much. Moony howls worse than that every full moon.

I put my hands on both sides of my mouth and responded to them.

I sent them a very simple message

"_Get out._

_Mine._

_Mine ._

_Mine._

_Mine_."

"Where'd you learn to do that?" Percy looked at me like I was some sort of madman.

"Places. The point is, Hellhounds are generally cowards. I issued them a challenge, and that might make some of them back off."

We saw several massive shapes charging through the forest

"Evidently not," Percy quipped

End of chapter 13


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

**I'm sorry for not updating sooner, but I didn't like how this chapter played out and I ended up re-writing the whole thing. As a compensation, here's a double-length chapter. Also, minor note; hellhounds are not the size of rhinos. Percy was exaggerating in the original book. They are the size of a small horse. Thanks for all the reviews.**

**Guest: Your idea has been taken into consideration but there won't be any of that for a while.**

**Remus POV**

I saw the hellhounds charging at us, six in total. I took out my knife and conjured a reinforced metal gauntlet. I had a feeling that I was going to need that. After slipping it on, I tried to review what I knew about hellhounds.

They were associated with Hades and darkness in general. They could use Shadow-travel to move long distances but only the very best were good enough to use it accurately in combat. They were excellent ambushers and trackers but weren't quite as bad when you could meet them head on. In open ground, they didn't have much of a strategy beyond charging at the enemy and trying to eat it, but if they encountered resistance, they would be much more careful in their approach. Their vulnerabilities were their eyes, and I had noticed that they had learned to close their eyes just before leaping at the enemy, like sharks. That could be used against them.

The leading hound leapt at me with murderous look in its eyes before it closed them for the attack. I took advantage of that, and rammed my knife into its upper mouth while it was distracted, piercing its brain. I rolled backwards, bringing my legs up and flinging it over myself.

The hounds claws, however, had already sunken to a part of the armor I had been wearing under my clothes, covering my upper right arm, and the beasts momentum wrested the plate free, along with forcing the knife, still stuck inside its mouth, from my grasp.

I got up and slipped my wand to my left hand while the gauntlet covered my right. The rest of the hellhounds, much more careful in their approach, split up. Three closed in on me while two went for Percy and Grover. Apparently they considered me to be the bigger threat.

Good.

Percy was keeping the two under control with Riptide, so I focused on the one in front of me, the two others hanging back a bit. I watched its movements closely, my own knowledge of canine anatomy coming to mind.

I watched it put its weight on to its front right paw, and saw my opening.

"_Flipendo_!"

The spell made a small crater In the dirt beneath the hellhounds paw, and it momentarily lost its balance.

As soon as the spell was airborne, I charged, and punched the hound in the face.

I had noticed that my strength would significantly increase the more desperate I am, and I was rather desperate at that point. Added to that the metal plate fastened where my knuckles would be in the gauntlet, and it was a foregone conclusion.

I felt the hellhounds jawbone break, and heard the howl of pain coming from it.

The two behind it were momentarily shocked so I jumped forward and wrapped my hands around the lead hounds neck and started to twist. Unfortunately I was forced to grab its broken jaw, and the hound went mad.

It started to convulse and jump and spin on the ground, trying to throw me off. It jumped on its back, knocking the wind out of me, but I held on.

Finally, with a resounding snap, its Spinal cord broke, and it fell limp. Fortunately for me, I had jumped from its back before it fell down to the ground, and I started to look around and take stock of the situation.

It wasn't looking good.

Percy had decapitated one of the hounds and was holding off another, whilst two advanced towards me, with murderous gleam in their eyes.

I was tired and out of power except for maybe a few low-level spells, none of which would be of any use now. I was without an effective weapon, seeing as the remaining ones probably wouldn't fall for the same trick, even if I could repeat it.

As I was got up from where I had been lying, I noticed something on the ground, and turned to look at it.

It was small cardboard box, with several used matchsticks, that somebody must have left lying there.

Well it wasn't like I could use them as a weapon-

Oh.

The most basic transfiguration, the first one taught in Hogwarts, something I could do in my sleep.

"Matches to needles," I said aloud.

I grabbed the matchbox and emptied it. There were four matches, all of which I immediately transfigured. I turned back towards the hounds, putting away my gauntlet, as I needed all the precision I could get.

The two hounds were still advancing on me, wary of a trap.

When I first learned this transfiguration, I had practiced throwing needles in case it proved useful. Never had I been more grateful for the paranoia my years on the streets had ingrained onto me. I tended to plan for some rather unlikely situations, and for once, it had paid off.

The first needle hit the hound on the left at the muzzle, eliciting a howl of pain. the second one struck it at the eye, getting an even louder response as the hound started to claw its head in pain. The third one hit the right one in the eye as well, earning similar response.

"_Engorgio!_"

I risked another spell, coming dangerously close to emptying my magical core. The last needle on my hand grew, until it was the size of a dagger. I charged forward to the hound on the left, still blinded, and pierced its throat with the large needle.

It crashed to the ground, and I was left wheezing for air. Unfortunately for me, the hound on the right charged forward, having heard my attack and my ragged breathing giving me away.

I ripped the needle-dagger free, and rammed it into the charging hellhounds forehead just as it tried to bite my face. Its claws sunk into my upper right arm, where the armor plate had been knocked loose, and made a deep wound to my flesh.

I turned my head towards where Percy and Grover were, and saw that they had managed to take down the last one. After seeing that my friends were okay, I promptly passed out.

I woke up the next day with a startle and was about to start swinging my knife when I realized it was Percy playing with Riptide, uncapping and recapping it.

I looked around, and saw Grover sleeping next to me. They must have dragged me here for the rest of the night.

I checked my wand, and noted that I had recovered a lot of my magic. I'd have to take it easy with my magic for a few days and there would be no problems.

"Are you okay?" Percy asked.

"Let's get moving," I said getting up to wake Grover.

"Shouldn't we take a look at your wounds first?" She responded

"You don't have medical training nor do we have anything to put on them, so we should just get going before more monsters turn up."

In truth most of the wounds had been healed by my altered physiology whilst I slept. It was only self-inflicted wounds that refused to heal. I readjusted my armor, flinching from pain as I put the plate over my injured arm.

As we started moving, Percy fell into line with me. "So what was that stick and that… stuff you did yesterday?"

"It's basically… well it's a blessing from Hecate. It has inspired most of the mortal myths about wizards and such.

She nodded and continued. "So Hecate blessed you?"

"No. She blessed one of my ancestors several thousand years ago."

"Oh."

"Yeah. There's a community of people like that in England and I go there to learn how to use it. They are generally prejudiced and arrogant people, having forgotten their origins. The gods don't consider them a threat because Hecate agreed to make direct offensive magic unable to affect, or affect at greatly diminished force anything from Greek mythology."

"For an example, _Expelliarmus_!" I said, bringing out my wand.

Percy looked like someone had lightly shoved her backwards.

"What was that supposed to achieve?"

"It was a demonstration. If you weren't a demigod that spell would have knocked you down and snatched Riptide from you. I can work around that by using magic for indirect offense, defense and utility. A spell that would kill a mortal would only stagger a demigod but that's all the distraction I need, and shielding spells and utility spells remain unaffected. For an example I am wearing my magically light-weighted armor beneath my clothing and that works just fine."

"So it's kind of like a Swiss army knife. Sword is better for direct fighting but the knife has more uses and can still be used in combat if skilled enough."

"Exactly. More questions?"

"Just two. What was that silvery thing that drove the Furies back? And what did you do what was that you did when we jumped off of the bus"

"That was a Patronus charm. It's a spell devised against creatures that feed on negative emotions so I figured it'd work just fine on the Kindly Ones."

"Or math teachers."

"Shut up. It's a high-level spell and I haven't quite gotten it yet but I'm working on it. It's supposed to be a corporeal animal, but I have only managed to get that once. The species of the animal depends on the caster."

"So what's yours"

" A wolf. And no, I don't know why it picked that. And at the bus I used an immobilizing spell that would have normally frozen us in mid-air but seeing as we're demigods, it didn't really work as intended so I had to use a lightening charm as well. At the fight I distracted one of the hounds with a Knockdown spell and transfigured some matches to needles for emergency weapons."

"Trans- what now?"

"Transfiguration. It means changing objects into another. It's generally a bit limited but it has its uses.

After tripping and cursing and generally feeling miserable for another mile or so, I started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. I could smell food.

My stomach groveled.

We kept walking until we saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closed-down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1990s movie, and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell.

It wasn't a fast-food restaurant like I'd hoped. It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamingos and wooden Indians and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. The main building was a long, low warehouse, surrounded by acres of statuary. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for me to read, because if there's anything worse for my dyslexia than regular English, it's red cursive neon English.

To me, it looked like: _ATNYU MES GDERAN GOMEN MEPROUIM._

"What the heck does that say?" Percy asked.

I cast a quick translation spell and read aloud "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium."

Flanking the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, ugly bearded little runts, smiling and waving, as if they were about to get their picture taken.

I reverted the spell and crossed the street, following the smell of the hamburgers.

"Hey ..." Grover warned.

"The lights are on inside," Percy said. "Maybe it's open."

"Snack bar," I said wistfully.

"Snack bar," she agreed.

"Are you two crazy?" Grover said. "This place is weird."

We ignored him. We were tired from last night and hungry.

The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Grover the creeps.

_"Bla-ha-ha!" _he bleated. "Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!"

We stopped at the warehouse door.

"Don't knock," Grover pleaded. "I smell monsters."

"Your nose is clogged up from the Furies," Percy told him.

"All I smell is burgers. Aren't you hungry?" I said

"Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian."

"You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans," I reminded him.

"Those are vegetables. Come on. Let's leave. These statues are ... looking at me."

Then the door creaked open, and standing in front of us was a tall Middle Eastern woman—at least, I assumed she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that covered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was about all I could make out. Her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well-manicured and elegant, so I imagined she was a grandmother who had once been a beautiful lady.

Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, "Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?"

"They're ... um ..." I started to say.

"We're orphans," Percy said.

"Orphans?" the woman said. The word sounded alien in her mouth. "But, my dears! Surely not!"

"We got separated from our caravan," Percy said. "Our circus caravan. The ringmaster told us to meet him at the gas station if we got lost, but he may have forgotten, or maybe he meant a different gas station. Anyway, we're lost. Is that food I smell?"

"Oh, my dears," the woman said. "You must come in, poor children. I am Aunty Em. Go straight through to the back of the warehouse, please. There is a dining area."

We thanked her and went inside.

I muttered to Percy, "Circus caravan?"

"Always have a strategy, right?"

"Your head is full of kelp."

The warehouse was filled with more statues—people in all different poses, wearing all different outfits and with different expressions on their faces. I was thinking you'd have to have a pretty huge garden to fit even one of these statues, because they were all life-size. But mostly, I was thinking about food.

The aroma was like laughing gas in the dentist's chair—it made everything else go away. I barely noticed Grover's nervous whimpers, or the way the statues' eyes seemed to follow me, or the fact that Aunty Em had locked the door behind us.

All I cared about was finding the dining area. And sure enough, there it was at the back of the warehouse, a fast-food counter with a grill, a soda fountain, a pretzel heater, and a nacho cheese dispenser.

"Please, sit down," Aunty Em said.

"Awesome," Percy said.

"Um," Grover said reluctantly, "we don't have any money, ma'am."

Before Percy could jab him in the ribs, Aunty Em said, "No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat, for such nice orphans."

"Thank you, ma'am," I said.

Aunty Em stiffened, as if I had done something wrong, but then the old woman relaxed just as quickly, so I figured it must've been my imagination.

"Quite all right, Remus," she said. "You have such beautiful gray eyes, child." Only later did I wonder how she knew my name, even though we had never introduced ourselves.

Our hostess disappeared behind the snack counter and started cooking. Before we knew it, she'd brought us plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, vanilla shakes, and XXL servings of French fries.

Percy was halfway through her burger before she remembered to breathe.

I slurped my shake.

Grover picked at the fries, and eyed the tray's waxed paper liner as if he might go for that, but he still looked too nervous to eat.

"What's that hissing noise?" he asked.

I listened, but didn't hear anything. I shook her head. my hearing wasn't quite as good as my sense of smell, so I figured it was just a faint noise or I was just that tired.

"Hissing?" Aunty Em asked. "Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer oil. You have keen ears, Grover."

"I take vitamins. For my ears."

"That's admirable," she said. "But please, relax."

Aunty Em ate nothing. She hadn't taken off her head dress, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, having someone stare at me when I couldn't see her face, but I was feeling satisfied after eating, and a little sleepy.

"So, you sell gnomes," Percy said, trying to sound interested.

"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said. "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."

"A lot of business on this road?"

"Not so much, no. Since the highway was built... most cars, they do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."

Percy and I turned to look at a statue of a young girl holding an Easter basket. The detail was incredible, much better than you see in most garden statues.

But something was wrong with her face. It looked as if she were startled, or even terrified.

"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly. "You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."

"You make these statues yourself?" I asked.

"Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help me in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em is alone. I have only my statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my company." She sounded sad.

I stopped eating. I sat forward and said, "Two sisters?"

"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said. "Not one for children, really. You see, I, a bad woman was jealous of me, long ago, when I was young.

I had a... a boyfriend, you know, and this bad woman was determined to break us apart. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price."

This was sounding really familiar, but I couldn't figure out how.

My eyelids kept getting heavier, my full stomach making me sleepy.

Grover was eating the waxed paper off the tray now, but if Aunty Em found that strange, she didn't say anything.

"Such beautiful gray eyes," Aunty Em told me again. "My, yes, it has been a long time since I've seen gray eyes like those."

"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"

"A pose?" Grover asked warily.

"A photograph. I will use it to model a new statue set.

Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves children."

We allowed Aunty Em to lead us back out the front door, into the garden of statues.

Aunty Em directed us to a park bench next to the stone satyr. "Now," she said, "I'll just position you correctly. The young girl in the middle, I think, and the two young gentlemen on either side."

"Not much light for a photo," I remarked.

"Oh, enough," Aunty Em said. "Enough for us to see each other, yes?"

"Where's your camera?" Grover asked.

Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot. "Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile for me please, everyone? A large smile?"

Grover glanced at the cement satyr next to him, and mumbled, "That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand."

"Grover," Aunty Em chastised, "look this way, dear."

She still had no camera in her hands.

"Percy—" I said.

Some instinct warned me to run away screaming, but I was fighting the sleepy feeling, the comfortable lull that came from the food and the old lady's voice.

"I will just be a moment," Aunty Em said. "You know, I can't see you very well in this cursed veil..."

"Something's wrong…" I said.

"Wrong?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to undo the wrap around her head. "Not at all, dear. I have such noble company tonight. What could be wrong?"

"That _is _Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover gasped.

"Look away from her!" Percy shouted, tackling me and down to the ground.

I was on the ground, looking at Aunt Em's sandaled feet.

I could hear Grover scrambling off in one direction, Percy in another. But I was too dazed to move.

Then I heard a strange, rasping sound near me. My eyes rose to Aunty Em's hands, which had turned gnarled and warty, with sharp bronze talons for fingernails.

I almost looked higher, but somewhere off to my left Percy screamed, "No! Don't!"

More rasping—the sound of tiny snakes, right above and next to me, from ... from about where Aunty Em's head would be.

"Run!" Grover bleated. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, _"Maia!" _to kick-start his flying sneakers.

I couldn't move. I stared at Aunty Em's gnarled claws, and tried to fight the groggy trance the old woman had put me in.

"Such a pity to destroy a handsome young face," she told Percy soothingly. "Stay with me, Percy. All you have to do is look up."

Percy and I struggled not to.

Aunty Em.

Aunty "M."

How could I have been so stupid? Also, how the heck did Percy figure this one out before me?

This was Bull***t

Think, I told myself. How did Medusa die in the myth?

I remembered that in the myth Medusa had been asleep when she was attacked by my companion's namesake, Perseus. She wasn't anywhere near asleep now. If she wanted, she could take those talons right now and we couldn't do anything about it.

"The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, Percy," Medusa said. "Remus's mother, the cursed Athena, turned me from a beautiful woman into this."

"Don't listen to her!" Grover's voice shouted, somewhere in the statuary. "Run, Percy!"

"Silence!" Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr. "You see why I must destroy the boy, Percy. He is my enemy's offspring. I shall crush his statue to dust. But you, dear Percy, you need not suffer."

"No," She muttered, whilst I tried to make my legs move.

"Do you really want to help the gods?" Medusa asked. "Do you understand what awaits you on this foolish quest, Percy? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue. Less pain. Less pain."

"Percy! Remus!" Behind us, I heard a buzzing sound, like a two-hundred-pound hummingbird in a nosedive. Grover yelled, "Duck!"

We turned, and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o'clock with his winged shoes fluttering, Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating by ears and nose alone.

"Duck!" he yelled at us again. "I'll get her!"

That finally jolted us into action. Knowing Grover, I was sure he'd miss Medusa and nail me.

I dove to one side and Percy to the other.

_Thwack!_

At first I figured it was the sound of Grover hitting a tree. Then Medusa roared with rage.

"You miserable satyr," she snarled. "I'll add you to my collection!"

"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover yelled back.

I scrambled away and hid in the statuary while Grover swooped down for another pass.

_Ker-whack!_

"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing and spit ting.

"Okay, I said," thinking. "We need to cut off her head."

"What? Are you crazy? Let's get out of here."

"Medusa is a menace. She's evil. I'd kill her myself, but..." I didn't want to admit it but:"You've got a better weapon; swords have longer reach than my knife and spells are ineffective when I can't aim. Besides, I'd never get close to her. She'd slice me to bits because of my mother. You—you've got a chance."

"What? I can't—"

"Look, do you want her turning more innocent people into statues?"

I pointed to a pair of statue lovers, a man and a woman with their arms around each other, turned to stone by the monster.

I grabbed a green gazing ball from a nearby pedestal. "A polished shield would be better." I studied the sphere critically. "The convexity will cause some distortion. The reflection's size should be off by a factor of—"

"Would you speak English?"

"I _am!" _I said, tossing her the glass ball.

"Just look at her in the glass. _Never _look at her directly."

"Hey, guys!" Grover yelled somewhere above us. "I think she's unconscious!"

_"Roooaaarrr!"_

"Maybe not," Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.

"Hurry," I told her. "Grover's got a great nose, but he'll eventually crash."

She took out her pen and uncapped it, Riptide emerging.

Percy was advancing by sound and what little she could glimpse from the glass ball.

Grover was coming in for another turn at bat, but this time he flew a little too low. Medusa grabbed the stick and pulled him off course. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the arms of a stone grizzly bear with a painful "Ummphh!"

Medusa was about to lunge at him when Percy yelled, "Hey!"

She advanced on Medusa, slowly and unsurely.

But she let her approach—twenty feet, ten feet.

"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Percy," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't."

Percy hesitated.

From the cement grizzly, Grover moaned, "Percy, don't listen to her!"

Medusa cackled. "Too late."

She lunged at Percy with her talons.

She slashed up with Riptide, making a sickening _shlock!,_ then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern—the sound of a monster disintegrating.

Something wet fell to the ground.

"Oh, yuck," Grover said. His eyes were still tightly closed, but I guess he could hear the thing gurgling and steaming. "Mega-yuck."

I came up next to Percy, eyes fixed on the sky, holding Medusa's black veil.

"Don't move."

Very, very carefully, without looking down, I knelt and draped the monster's head in black cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping green juice.

"Are you okay?" I asked Percy, my voice trembling.

"Yeah… Why didn't ... why didn't the head evaporate?"

"Once you sever it, it becomes a spoil of war," I said. "Same as your minotaur horn. But don't unwrap the head. It can still petrify you."

Grover moaned as he climbed down from the grizzly statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green rasta cap hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked off his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head.

"The Red Baron," Percy said. "Good job, man."

He managed a bashful grin. "That really was _not _fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? _Not _fun."

He snatched his shoes out of the air. I recapped my sword. Together, the three of us stumbled back to the ware house.

We found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head. We plopped it on the table where we'd eaten dinner and sat around it, too exhausted to speak.

Finally Percy said, "So we have Athena to thank for this monster?"

I flashed her an irritated look. "Your dad, actually. Don't you remember? Medusa was Poseidon's girlfriend. They decided to meet in my mother's temple. That's why Athena turned her into a monster. Medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. That's why Medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. She's still sweet on your dad. You probably reminded her of him. That or she's-"

Percy's face was reddening. "Oh, so now it's _my _fault we met Medusa," she interrupted.

"Forget it," I said. "You're impossible."

"You're insufferable."

"You're—"

"Hey!" Grover interrupted. "You two are giving me a migraine, and satyrs don't even _get _migraines. What are we going to do with the head?"

Percy stared at the thing. One little snake was hanging out of a hole in the plastic. The words printed on the side of the bag said: WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS!

Percy got up. "I'll be back."

"Percy," I called after her. "What are you doing?"

While she did whatever she was doing, we gathered all the food we could find and I cast as many de-tox spells on them as I could afford without straining myself and hoped it was enough to rid them of whatever drugged us. We talked about how the quest was more than a bit strange. I then tried to discuss our options at entering the Underworld, but Grover was still a bit shocked and didn't want to talk about it.

Percy came back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa's head, and filled out a delivery slip:

_The Gods_

_MountOlympus_

_600th Floor,_

_EmpireState Building_

_New York, NY_

_With best wishes,_

_PERCY JACKSON_

"They're not going to like that," Grover warned. "They'll think you're impertinent."

Percy poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. As soon as she closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a _pop!_

"I _am _impertinent," She said.

She looked at me, as if daring me to criticize.

I didn't. I had resigned to the fact that Percy had a major talent for ticking off the gods. "Come on," I muttered. "We need a new plan."

**Chapter 14 end**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

**Here are some more updates. I've also edited some minor problems in the past chapters.**

**Percy POV**

We were pretty miserable that night.

We camped out in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obviously been using for parties.

The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers.

We'd taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's, but we didn't dare light a fire to dry our damp clothes. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for now. We didn't want to attract anything else.

We decided to sleep in shifts. I volunteered to take first watch.

Remus curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as his head hit the ground. Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, put his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky.

"Go ahead and sleep," I told him. "I'll wake you if there's trouble."

He nodded, but still didn't close his eyes. "It makes me sad, Percy."

"What does? The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?"

"No. _This _makes me sad." He pointed at all the garbage on the ground. "And the sky." You can't even see the stars. They've polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."

"Oh, yeah. I guess you'd be an environmentalist."

He glared at me. "Only a human wouldn't be. Your species is clogging up the world so fast ... ah, never mind. It's useless to lecture a human. At the rate things are going, I'll never find Pan."

"Pam? Like the cooking spray?"

"Pan!" he cried indignantly. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! What do you think I want a searcher's license for?"

A strange breeze rustled through the clearing, temporarily overpowering the stink of trash and muck. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers and clean rain water, things that might've once been in these woods. Suddenly I was nostalgic for something I'd never known.

"Tell me about the search," I said.

Grover looked at me cautiously, as if he were afraid I was just making fun.

"The God of Wild Places disappeared two thousand years ago," he told me. "A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out from the shore, 'Tell them that the great god Pan has died!' When humans heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom ever since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died. In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden, and wake him from his sleep."

"And you want to be a searcher."

"It's my life's dream," he said. "My father was a searcher. And my Uncle Ferdinand ... the statue you saw back there—"

"Oh, right, sorry."

Grover shook his head. "Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I'll succeed. I'll be the first searcher to return alive."

"Hang on—_the first?"_

Grover took his reed pipes out of his pocket. "No searcher has ever come back. Once they set out, they disappear. They're never seen alive again."

"Not once in two thousand years?"

"No."

"And your dad? You have no idea what happened to him?"

"None."

"But you still want to go," I said, amazed. "I mean, you really think you'll be the one to find Pan?"

"I have to believe that, Percy. Every searcher does. It's the only thing that keeps us from despair when we look at what humans have done to the world. I have to believe Pan can still be awakened."

I stared at the orange haze of the sky and tried to understand how Grover could pursue a dream that seemed so hopeless. Then again, was I any better?

"How are we going to get into the Underworld?" I asked him. "I mean, what chance do we have against a god?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But back at Medusa's, when you were searching her office? Remus was telling me—"

"Oh, I forgot. Remus will have a plan all figured out."

"Don't be so hard on him, Percy. He's had a tough life, but he's a good person. After all, he forgave me..." His voice faltered.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Forgave you for what?"

Suddenly, Grover seemed very interested in playing notes on his pipes.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Your first keeper job was five years ago. Remus has been at camp five years. He wasn't ... I mean, your first assignment that went wrong—"

"I can't talk about it," Grover said, and his quivering lower lip suggested he'd start crying if I pressed him. "But as I was saying, back at Medusa's, Remus and I agreed there's something strange going on with this quest. Something isn't what it seems."

"Well, duh. I'm getting blamed for stealing a thunder bolt that Hades took."

"That's not what I mean," Grover said. "The Fur—The Kindly Ones were sort of holding back. Like Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy ... why did she wait so long to try to kill you? Then on the bus, they just weren't as aggressive as they could've been."

"They seemed plenty aggressive to me."

Grover shook his head. "They were screeching at us: 'Where is it? Where?'"

"Asking about me," I said.

"Maybe ... but Remus and I, we both got the feeling they weren't asking about a person. They said 'Where is _it_?' They seemed to be asking about an object."

"That doesn't make sense."

"I know. But if we've misunderstood something about this quest, and we only have nine days to find the master bolt..." He looked at me like he was hoping for answers, but I didn't have any.

I thought about what Medusa had said: I was being used by the gods. What lay ahead of me was worse than petrification. "I haven't been straight with you," I told Grover. "I don't care about the master bolt. I agreed to go to the Underworld so I could bring back my mother."

Grover blew a soft note on his pipes. "I know that, Percy. But are you sure that's the only reason?"

"I'm not doing it to help my father. He doesn't care about me. I don't care about him."

Grover gazed down from his tree branch. "Look, Percy, I'm not as smart as Remus. I'm not as brave as you. But I'm pretty good at reading emotions. You're glad your dad is alive. You feel good that he's claimed you, and part of you wants to make him proud. That's why you mailed Medusa's head to Olympus. You wanted him to notice what you'd done."

"Yeah? Well maybe satyr emotions work differently than human emotions. Because you're wrong. I don't care what he thinks."

Grover pulled his feet up onto the branch. "Okay, Percy. Whatever."

"Besides, I haven't done anything worth bragging about. We barely got out of New York and we're stuck here with no money and no way west."

Grover looked at the night sky, like he was thinking about that problem. "How about _I_ take first watch, huh? You get some sleep."

I wanted to protest, but he started to play Mozart, soft and sweet, and I turned away, my eyes stinging. After a few bars of Piano Concerto no. 12, I was asleep.

In my dreams, I stood in a dark cavern before a gaping pit.

Gray mist creatures churned all around me, whispering rags of smoke that I somehow knew were the spirits of the dead.

They tugged at my clothes, trying to pull me back, but I felt compelled to walk forward to the very edge of the chasm.

Looking down made me dizzy.

The pit yawned so wide and was so completely black, I knew it must be bottomless. Yet I had a feeling that something was trying to rise from the abyss, something huge and evil.

_The little hero, _an amused voice echoed far down in the darkness. _Too weak, too young, but perhaps you will do._

The voice felt ancient—cold and heavy. It wrapped around me like sheets of lead.

_They have misled you, boy, _it said. _Barter with me.I will give you what you want._

A shimmering image hovered over the void: my mother, frozen at the moment she'd dissolved in a shower of gold. Her face was distorted with pain, as if the Minotaur were still squeezing her neck. Her eyes looked directly at me, pleading: _Go!_

I tried to cry out, but my voice wouldn't work.

Cold laughter echoed from the chasm.

An invisible force pulled me forward. It would drag me into the pit unless I stood firm.

_Help me rise, boy. _The voice became hungrier. _Bring me the bolt. Strike a blow against the treacherous gods!_

The spirits of the dead whispered around me, _No! Wake!_

The image of my mother began to fade. The thing in the pit tightened its unseen grip around me.

I realized it wasn't interested in pulling me in. It was using me to pull itself _out._

_Good, _it murmured. _Good._

_Wake! _the dead whispered. _Wake!_

Then I saw a massive grey wolf, around the size of a pickup truck. Saliva was dripping from its mouth and it looked like it could give a pack of hellhounds a run for their money. It had an oversized claws and head, with gleaming yellow eyes that looked like they bored straight through me. (A/N Think Thunderwolf cavalry from WH40k. If you don't know what they are, image search them. And keep in mind that the guy on its back is three-meter tall super soldier in power armor.)

Someone was shaking me.

My eyes opened, and it was daylight.

"Well," Remus said, "the zombie lives."

I was trembling from the dream. I could still feel the grip of the chasm monster around my chest and the eyes of the wolf on me. "How long was I asleep?"

"Long enough for me to cook breakfast." Remus tossed me a bag of nacho-flavored corn chips from Aunty Em's snack bar. "And Grover went exploring. Look, he found a friend."

My eyes had trouble focusing.

Grover was sitting cross-legged on a blanket with something fuzzy in his lap, a dirty, unnaturally pink stuffed animal.

No. It wasn't a stuffed animal. It was a pink poodle.

The poodle yapped at me suspiciously. Grover said, "No, he's not."

I blinked. "Are you ... talking to that thing?"

The poodle growled.

"This _thing_," Grover warned, "is our ticket west. Be nice to him."

"You can talk to animals?"

Grover ignored the question. "Percy, meet Gladiola. Gladiola, Percy."

I stared at Remus, figuring he'd crack up at this practical joke they were playing on me, but he looked deadly serious.

"I'm not saying hello to a pink poodle," I said. "Forget it."

"Percy," Remus said. "I said hello to the poodle. You say hello to the poodle."

The poodle growled.

I said hello to the poodle.

Grover explained that he'd come across Gladiola in the woods and they'd struck up a conversation. The poodle had run away from a rich local family, who'd posted a $200 reward for his return. Gladiola didn't really want to go back to his family, but he was willing to if it meant helping Grover.

"How does Gladiola know about the reward?" I asked.

"He read the signs," Grover said. "Duh."

"Of course," I said. "Silly me."

"So we turn in Gladiola," Remus explained in his best strategy voice, "we get money, and we buy tickets to Los Angeles. Simple."

I thought about my dream—the whispering voices of the dead, the thing in the chasm, and my mother's face, shimmering as it dissolved into gold. All that might be waiting for me in the West.

"Not another bus," I said warily.

"No," Remus agreed.

He pointed downhill, toward train tracks I hadn't been able to see last night in the dark. "There's an Amtrak station half a mile that way. According to Gladiola, the west bound train leaves at noon."

**Chapter 14 end**


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

**Remus POV**

We spent two days on the Amtrak train, heading west through hills, over rivers, past amber waves of grain.

We weren't attacked once, but I didn't dare relax.

I was furious at myself for not noticing Medusa earlier. How the hell did that happen? I was the senior one here. I was supposed to help Percy on his first quest, not to make a fool out of myself and get saved by someone who'd been trained for barely three weeks.

I was a bit on the edge, ready to draw my knife at any moment. I almost skewered the Conductor once.

Percy showed me a newspaper she'd gotten from somewhere.

The article read:

_Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson, wanted for questioning in the Long Island disappearance of her mother two weeks ago, is shown here fleeing from the bus where she accosted several elderly female passengers._

_An explosion occurred near the point of Miss. Jackson's exit from the bus on an east New Jersey roadside shortly after she fled the scene. Based on eyewitness accounts, police believe the girl may be traveling with two teenage accomplices. _

_Her stepfather, Gabe Ugliano, has offered a cash reward for information leading to her capture._

"Don't worry," I told her. "Mortal police could never find us."

At least if I threw in a bit of spellwork.

The rest of the day went by reading and staring out of the windows.

Our reward money for returning Gladiola the poodle had only been enough to purchase tickets as far as Denver. We couldn't get berths in the sleeper car, so we dozed in our seats.

Grover kept snoring and bleating and waking me up.

Once, he shuffled around and his fake foot fell off. Percy and I had to stick it back on before any of the other passengers noticed.

"So," I asked Percy, once we'd gotten Grover's sneaker readjusted. "Who wants your help?"

"What do you mean?"

"When you were asleep just now, you mumbled, 'I won't help you.' Who were you dreaming about?"

She seemed reluctant to say anything, but finally relented and told me.

I was quiet for a long time. "That doesn't sound like Hades. He always appears on a black throne, and he never laughs."

"He offered my mother in trade. Who else could do that?"

"I guess ... if he meant, 'Help me rise from the Underworld.' like he wants war with the Olympians. But why ask you to bring him the master bolt if he already has it?"

_Where is it? Where?_

Percy took a long look at Grover. He snorted in his sleep, muttered something about vegetables, and turned his head.

I got up and readjusted his cap so it covered his horns. "Percy, you can't barter with Hades. You know that, right? He's deceitful, heartless, and greedy.

I don't care if his Kindly Ones weren't as aggressive this time—"

"This time?" She asked. "You mean you've run into them before?"

My hand went to the Camp necklace, fingering the glazed white bead painted with the image of a pine tree. "Let's just say I've got no love for the Lord of the Dead. You can't be tempted to make a deal for your mom."

"What would you do if it was your dad?"

"That's easy," I said. "I'd leave him to rot."

"You're not serious?"

I stared at her. "My dad's resented me since the day I was born, Percy," I said. "He never wanted a baby. When he got me, he asked Athena to take me back and raise me on Olympus because he was too busy with his work. She wasn't happy about that. She told him heroes had to be raised by their mortal parent."

"But how ... I mean, I guess you weren't born in a hospital..."

"I appeared on my father's doorstep, in a golden cradle, carried down from Olympus by Zephyr the West Wind. You'd think my dad would remember that as a miracle, right? Like, maybe he'd take some digital photos or something. But he always talked about my arrival as if it were the most inconvenient thing that had ever happened to him. When I was five he got married and completely forgot about Athena. He got a 'regular' mortal wife, and had two 'regular' mortal kids, and tried to pretend I didn't exist."

Percy stared out the train window. The lights of a sleeping town were drifting by. Percy looked like someone had kicked a puppy.

"My mom married a really awful guy," She told me. "Grover said she did it to protect me, to hide me in the scent of a human family. Maybe that's what your dad was thinking."

"He doesn't care about me," I said. "His wife—my stepmom—treated me like a freak. She wouldn't let me play with her children. My dad went along with her. Whenever something dangerous happened—you know, something with monsters—they would both look at me resentfully, like, 'How dare you put our family at risk.' Finally, I took the hint. I wasn't wanted. I ran away."

"How old were you?"

"Two years before I started camp. Five."

"But ... you couldn't have gotten all the way to Half-Blood Hill by yourself."

"Not alone, no. I spent some time in the streets, and Athena watched over me, eventually guiding me toward help. I made a couple of unexpected friends who took care of me, for a short time, anyway."

"Didn't you say monsters only started attacking after you're eleven or so."

"Normally. I wasn't so lucky."

I really didn't want to think about those days. It'd just bring back the pain of losing Thalia.

So I listened to the sound of Grover snoring and gazed out the train windows as the dark fields of Ohio raced by.

Toward the end of our second day on the train, June 13, eight days before the summer solstice, we passed through some golden hills and over the Mississippi River into St. Louis. I craned me neck to see the Gateway Arch.

"I want to do that," I sighed.

"What?" she asked.

"Do something like that. You ever see the Parthenon, Percy?"

"Only in pictures."

"I want to leave an impression, something that the next generations will look at and remember me. I know some of my siblings have become architects but that's not my thing. It's like… say, doing something that future generations can make studies about and wonder how the hell I pulled it off. I know it sounds selfish but that's been my dream for gods know how long."

I don't know how, but she apparently found it funny.

My cheeks flushed. "Yes, Athena expects her children to create things, not just tear them down, like a certain god of earthquakes I could mention."

She stared at the water of the Mississippi below. I felt a bit bad for saying it like that.

"Can't we work together a little?" She pleaded. "I mean, didn't Athena and Poseidon ever cooperate?"

I had to think about it. "I guess ... the chariot," I said tentatively. "My mom invented it, but Poseidon created horses out of the crests of waves. So they had to work together to make it complete."

"Then we can cooperate, too. Right?"

We rode into the city, I was watching as the Arch disappeared behind a hotel.

"I suppose," I said at last.

* * *

We pulled into the Amtrak station downtown. The intercom told us we'd have a three-hour layover before departing for Denver.

Grover stretched. Before he was even fully awake, he said, "Food."

"Come on, goat boy," I said. "Sightseeing."

"Sightseeing?"

"The Gateway Arch," I said. "This may be my only chance to ride to the top. Are you coming or not?"

Grover and I exchanged looks.

I wanted to say no, but I figured that if I was going, we couldn't very well let her go alone.

Grover shrugged. "As long as there's a snack bar without monsters."

The Arch was about a mile from the train station. Late in the day the lines to get in weren't that long. We threaded our way through the underground museum, looking at covered wagons and other things from the 1800s. I kept dropping in some interesting facts to keep Percy and Grover awake.

Percy kept looking around, though, at the other people in line. "You smell anything?" She murmured to Grover.

He took his nose out of the jelly-bean bag long enough to sniff. "Underground," he said distastefully. "Underground air always smells like monsters. Probably doesn't mean anything."

"I'm not smelling anything either."

"What's up with that? I was too tired to notice but do you have some sort of super smelling power?"

"Trust me, a few years in the streets and you'll be sniffing out the leftovers from half a mile away too."

* * *

"Guys," Percy said. "You know the gods' symbols of power?"

I had been in the middle of reading about the political atmosphere that led to the building of the Arch, but looked over. "Yeah?"

"Well, Hade—"

Grover cleared his throat. "We're in a public place... You mean, our friend downstairs?"

"Um, right," She said. "Our friend _way _downstairs. Doesn't he have a hat like our friend upstairs has his master bolt and dad has his trident?"

"You mean the Helm of Darkness," I said. "Yeah, that's his symbol of power. I saw it next to his seat during the winter solstice council meeting."

"He was there?" Percy asked.

I nodded. "It's the only time he's allowed to visit Olympus—the darkest day of the year."

"It allows him to become darkness," Grover said. "He can melt into shadow or pass through walls. He can't be touched, or seen, or heard. And he can radiate fear so intense it can drive you insane or stop your heart. Why do you think all rational creatures fear the dark?"

"But then ... how do we know he's not here right now, watching us?" Percy asked.

Grover and I exchanged looks.

"We don't," Grover said.

"Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better," Percy said. "Got any blue jelly beans left?"

* * *

We got shoehorned into the car with this big fat lady and her dog, a Chihuahua with a rhinestone collar. I figured maybe the dog was a seeing-eye Chihuahua, because none of the guards said a word about it.

We started going up, inside the Arch. I'd never been in an elevator that went in a curve, and my stomach wasn't too happy about it.

"No parents?" the fat lady asked us.

She had beady eyes; pointy, coffee-stained teeth; a floppy denim hat, and a denim dress.

"They're below," I told her. "Scared of heights."

"Oh, the poor darlings."

The Chihuahua growled. The woman said, "Now, now, Sonny. Behave." The dog had beady eyes like its owner, intelligent and vicious.

Percy said, "Sonny. Is that his name?"

"No," the lady told us.

She smiled, as if that cleared everything up.

At the top of the Arch, the observation deck was rather interesting. The view was fantastic, you could see miles in every direction.

I could've stayed there for hours just looking at the world, but luckily for Percy the park ranger announced that the observation deck would be closing in a few minutes.

Percy steered Grover and I toward the exit, loaded us into the elevator, and was about to get in myself when we realized there were already two other tourists inside. No room for Percy.

The park ranger said, "Next car, sir."

"We'll get out," I said. "We'll wait with you."

Percy said, "Naw, it's okay. I'll see you guys at the bottom."

* * *

Grover and I were both nervous about this, we didn't want to leave her alone for too long, she might do something stupid like blow up the whole Arch, but we let the elevator door slide shut. Our car slid down the ramp.

We waited near the elevator for Percy, I reading a book about the numerous attempts to stop the Arch's construction, Grover nervously eating his beans

She should be here by now." I said several minutes later.

"She's-"

**_BOOM! _**

Why did we leave her alone again?

Part of the Arch exploded. I ran towards the Arch, looking for anyone who had fallen. Where's Percy? I thought. I looked up just to see her jump off the observation deck, clothes in fire. I gasped. Running towards the water where she was about to land, I pulled Grover with me

**_SPLASH!_**

**Chapter 15 end**


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

**Percy POV**

I'd love to tell you I had some deep revelation on my way down, that I came to terms with my own mortality, laughed in the face of death, etcetera.

The truth? My only thought was: Aaaaggghhhhh!

The river raced toward me at the speed of a truck. Wind ripped the breath from my lungs. Steeples and skyscrapers and bridges tumbled in and out of my vision.

And then: Flaaa-boooom!

A whiteout of bubbles. I sank through the murk, sure that I was about to end up embedded in a hundred feet of mud and lost forever.

But my impact with the water hadn't hurt.

I was falling slowly now, bubbles trickling up through my fingers. I settled on the river bottom soundlessly. A catfish the size of my stepfather lurched away into the gloom. Clouds of silt and disgusting garbage—beer bottles, old shoes, plastic bags—swirled up all around me.

At that point, I realized a few things: first, I had not been flattened into a pancake. I had not been barbecued. I couldn't even feel the Chimera poison boiling in my veins anymore. I was alive, which was good.

Second realization: I wasn't wet. I mean, I could feel the coolness of the water. I could see where the fire on my clothes had been quenched. But when I touched my own shirt, it felt perfectly dry.

I looked at the garbage floating by and snatched an old cigarette lighter.

No way, I thought.

I flicked the lighter. It sparked. A tiny flame appeared, right there at the bottom of the Mississippi.

I grabbed a soggy hamburger wrapper out of the current and immediately the paper turned dry.

I lit it with no problem. As soon as I let it go, the flames sputtered out. The wrapper turned back into a slimy rag. Weird.

But the strangest thought occurred to me only last: I was breathing. I was underwater, and I was breathing normally.

I stood up, thigh-deep in mud. My legs felt shaky. My hands trembled. I should've been dead. The fact that I wasn't seemed like ... well, a miracle. I imagined a woman's voice, a voice that sounded a bit like my mother: "Percy, what do you say?"

"Um ... thanks." Underwater, I sounded like I did on recordings, like a much older kid. "Thank you ... Father."

No response. Just the dark drift of garbage downriver, the enormous catfish gliding by, the flash of sunset on the water's surface far above, turning everything the color of butterscotch.

Why had Poseidon saved me? The more I thought about it, the more ashamed I felt. So I'd gotten lucky a few times before. Against a thing like the Chimera, I had never stood a chance.

Those poor people in the Arch were probably toast. I couldn't protect them. I was no hero. Maybe I should just stay down here with the catfish, join the bottom feeders.

Fump-fump-fump. A riverboat's paddlewheel churned above me, swirling the silt around.

There, not five feet in front of me, was my sword, its gleaming bronze hilt sticking up in the mud.

I heard that woman's voice again: "Percy, take the sword. Your father believes in you." This time, I knew the voice wasn't in my head. I wasn't imagining it. Her words seemed to come from everywhere, rippling through the water like dolphin sonar.

"Where are you?" I called aloud.

Then, through the gloom, I saw her—a woman the color of the water, a ghost in the current, floating just above the sword. She had long billowing hair, and her eyes, barely visible, were green like mine.

A lump formed in my throat. I said, "Mom?"

"No, child, only a messenger, though your mother's fate is not as hope less as you believe. Go to the beach in Santa Monica."

"What?"

"It is your father's will. Before you descend into the Underworld, you must go to Santa Monica. Please, Percy, I cannot stay long. The river here is too foul for my presence."

"But ..." I was sure this woman was my mother, or a vision of her, anyway. "Who—how did you—"

There was so much I wanted to ask, the words jammed up in my throat.

"I cannot stay, brave one, the woman said. She reached out, and I felt the current brush my face like a caress. You must go to Santa Monica! And, Percy, do not trust the gifts..."

Her voice faded.

"Gifts?" I asked. "What gifts? Wait!"

She made one more attempt to speak, but the sound was gone. Her image melted away. If it was my mother, I had lost her again.

I felt like drowning myself. The only problem: I was immune to drowning.

Your father believes in you, she had said.

She'd also called me brave ... unless she was talking to the catfish.

I waded toward Riptide and grabbed it by the hilt. The Chimera might still be up there with its snaky, fat mother, waiting to finish me off. At the very least, the mortal police would be arriving, trying to figure out who had blown a hole in the Arch. If they found me, they'd have some questions.

I capped my sword, stuck the ballpoint pen in my pocket. "Thank you, Father," I said again to the dark water.

Then I kicked up through the muck and swam for the surface.

I came ashore next to a floating McDonald's.

A block away, every emergency vehicle in St. Louis was surrounding the Arch. Police helicopters circled overhead. The crowd of onlookers reminded me of Times Square on New Year's Eve.

A little girl said, "Mama! That girl walked out of the river."

"That's nice, dear," her mother said, craning her neck to watch the ambulances.

"But she's dry!"

"That's nice, dear."

A news lady was talking for the camera: "Probably not a terrorist attack, we're told, but it's still very early in the investigation. The damage, as you can see, is very serious. We're trying to get to some of the survivors, to question them about eyewitness reports of someone falling from the Arch."

Survivors. I felt a surge of relief. Maybe the park ranger and that family made it out safely. I hoped Remus and Grover were okay.

I tried to push through the crowd to see what was going on inside the police line.

"... an adolescent girl," another reporter was saying. "Channel Five has learned that surveillance cameras show an adolescent girl going wild on the observation deck, somehow setting off this freak explosion. Hard to believe, John, but that's what we're hearing. Again, no confirmed fatalities …"

I backed away, trying to keep my head down. I had to go a long way around the police perimeter. Uniformed officers and news reporters were everywhere.

I'd almost lost hope of ever finding Remus and Grover when a familiar voice bleated, "Perrr-cy!"

I turned and got tackled by Grover's bear hug—or goat hug. He said, "We thought you'd gone to Hades the hard way!"

Remus stood behind him, trying to look angry, but even he seemed relieved to see me.

"We can't leave you alone for five minutes! What happened?"

"I sort of fell."

"Percy! Six hundred and thirty feet?"

Behind us, a cop shouted, "Gangway!" The crowd parted, and a couple of paramedics hustled out, rolling a woman on a stretcher. I recognized her immediately as the mother of the little boy who'd been on the observation deck. She was saying, "And then this huge dog, this huge fire-breathing Chihuahua—"

"Okay, ma'am," the paramedic said. "Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in."

"I'm not crazy! This girl jumped out of the hole and the monster disappeared." Then she saw me. "There she is! That's the girl!"

I turned quickly and pulled Remus and Grover after me. We disappeared into the crowd.

"What's going on?" Remus demanded. "Was she talking about the Chihuahua on the elevator?"

I told them the whole story of the Chimera, Echidna, my high-dive act, and the underwater lady's message.

"Whoa," said Grover. "We've got to get you to Santa Monica! You can't ignore a summons from your dad."

Before Remus could respond, we passed another reporter doing a news break, and I almost froze in my tracks when he said, "Percy Jackson. That's right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that the girl who may have caused this explosion fits the description of a young woman wanted by authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago. And the girl is believed to be traveling west. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Percy Jackson."

We ducked around the news van and slipped into an alley.

"First things first," I told Grover. "We've got to get out of town!"

Somehow, we made it back to the Amtrak station without getting spotted. We got on board the train just before it pulled out for Denver. The train trundled west as darkness fell, police lights still pulsing against the St. Louis skyline behind us.

**Remus POV**

The next afternoon, seven days before the solstice, our train rolled into Denver. We hadn't eaten since the night before in the dining car, somewhere in Kansas. We hadn't taken a shower since Half-Blood Hill, either.

"Let's try to contact Chiron," I said. "I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit."

"We can't use phones, right?"

"I'm not talking about phones."

We wandered through downtown for about half an hour, looking for a way to form a rainbow. The air was dry and hot, which felt weird after the humidity of St. Louis. Everywhere we turned, the Rocky Mountains seemed to be staring at me, like a tidal wave about to crash into the city.

Finally we found an empty do-it-yourself car wash. We veered toward the stall farthest from the street, keeping our eyes open for patrol cars. We were three adolescents hanging out at a car wash without a car; any cop worth his doughnuts would figure we were up to no good.

"What exactly are we doing?" Percy asked, as Grover took out the spray gun.

"It's seventy-five cents," he grumbled. "I've only got two quarters left. Remus?"

"Don't look at me," he said. "The dining car wiped me out."

Percy fished out last bit of change and passed Grover a quarter.

"Excellent," Grover said. "We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good, and my arm gets tired of pumping.".

"What are you talking about?"

He fed in the quarters and set the knob to FINE MIST. "I-M'ing."

"Instant messaging?"

"Iris-messaging," I corrected. "The rainbow goddess Iris carries messages for the gods. If you know how to ask, and she's not too busy, she'll do the same for half-bloods."

"You summon the goddess with a spray gun?"

Grover pointed the nozzle in the air and water hissed out in a thick white mist. "Unless you know an easier way to make a rainbow."

Soon enough, late afternoon light filtered through the vapor and broke into colors.

I held my palm out to Percy. "Drachma, please."

She handed it over.

I raised the coin over my head. "O goddess, accept our offering."

I then threw the drachma into the rainbow. It disappeared in a golden shimmer.

"Half-Blood Hill," I requested.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then I was looking through the mist at strawberry fields, and the Long Island Sound in the distance. We seemed to be on the porch of the Big House. Standing with his back to us at the railing was a sandy-haired guy in shorts and an orange tank top. He was holding a bronze sword and seemed to be staring intently at something down in the meadow.

"Luke!" Percy called.

He turned, eyes wide. "Percy!" His scarred face broke into a grin. "Is that Remus, too? Thank the gods! Are you guys okay?"

"We're ... uh ... fine," I stammered. I was suddenly embarrassed at having to ask for information from Luke. It was stupid, but I didn't want to show weakness to him.

"We thought—Chiron—I mean—"

"He's down at the cabins." Luke's smile faded. "We're having some issues with the campers. Listen, is everything cool with you? Is Grover all right?"

"I'm right here," Grover called. He held the nozzle out to one side and stepped into Luke's line of vision. "What kind of issues?"

Just then a big Lincoln Continental pulled into the car wash with its stereo turned to maximum hip-hop. As the car slid into the next stall, the bass from the subwoofers vibrated so much, it shook the pavement.

"Chiron had to—what's that noise?" Luke yelled.

"I'll take care of it.'" I yelled back, pretty relieved to have an excuse to get out of sight.

"Grover, come on!"

"What?" Grover said. "But—"

"Give Percy the nozzle and come on!" I ordered.

I walked to the next stall and called in, "Put that music down a bit, please?"

"Screw you and the horse you rode on! This is a free country, I can do what I want, ain't that right boys?" A man on his early 20s yelled back, his friends sniggering in the car.

"Fine! But you'll regret it!"

Quietly, I muttered, "Oppugno"

After a few seconds an irate squirrel with murder on its eyes leapt in through the cars window and horrified sounds were being heard.

The car's driver slammed down on the gas pedestal and sped off of the car wash, one of the men throwing the squirrel out of the car as they went.

Grover looked at me and smiled.

"You know, normally I'd be angry at you for animal cruelty but this time I think I'll make an exception."

**Chapter 17 end**


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